Welcome to the CET 15.0 QA Testing Guide, please check with your developer to make sure 15.0 Migration is successfully completed (if any) before testing.
Watch the recording here if you've missed our webinar.
CET 15.0 Migration Workshop Additions
With the 4 weeks recurring migration workshop after the main CET 15.0 QA Testing webinar, QA support and DEV support would put our hands together to answer your queries on migration difficulties, as well as to provide latest updates if there's any.
Migration Workshop on 22 April 2024
User interface
CET Facelift
With the early rollout of CET facelift in CET 15.0, we are making sure all manufacturers have the consistent experience across, hence we are ensuring it is in good order on your end.
Classic CET (left) against Facelifted CET (left)
Please be informed that in the facelifted CET will have a noticeably wider margin compared to the classic CET. With the slight margin expansion, it will be expected for most manufacturer extension toolboxes to have a button / tool / snapper switch position due to wider space availability.
We understand that this is likely not the preference for most manufacturers. Thus, this will be finalized in the coming developer migration plan in which CET facelift user interface will be made default in CET 16.0 in May 2025.
With most fixes are on their way but we would want you to check these prominent areas too. Please follow smoke test instructions below.
- Flick the toggle and CET should quickly reboot in the facelifted user interface. In the facelifted CET, check:
- Texts should not be clipped, as potentially it might be clipped due to auto sizing of the new font size in the facelift.
Example above shows the alphabets 'p' and 'g' clipped below.
- Check the dialogues with / without tabs (Article views in calculation, project information, print dialog, picklist or manufacturer specific card dialogues, etc), the card comprises of content, listing should not be cropped.
For dialogues with tabs above, it should not flicker when switching between tabs for consistency.
Example above shows cropped 'Sorting' tab in the calculation dialogue and a cropped user interface in a manufacturer specific dialogue.
- Texts should not be clipped, as potentially it might be clipped due to auto sizing of the new font size in the facelift.
Bug fixes and improvements🪲
As with any other releases, we're trying to improve by ruling out as much bugs as possible in order to maintain that awesome CET user experience. Hence, these relevant bugs and changes were handpicked for your information, divided into different CET component areas.
Blocks
Code Refactoring of 'cm.core.block' class
There are code refactoring done in the 'cm.core.block' class, where redundant classes were removed and new classes were added for code optimization. Ensuring there are no adverse effects on your end, follow smoke test instructions below:
FIKA workstation in a block
- Using your manufacturer snappers, create a block. Then, create a few alternatives with the same copy of the block in the drawing. In any of the alternatives, entering 'Edit block mode' should be possible.
- A warning dialog will show up for the *first time entering edit block mode with alternatives.
- Switch between blocks and verify that changes made in block will reflect in all alternatives.
- Explode and clone functionality should work.
The warning dialog will only be shown for the first time. If it was ever set 'Never to show again', it will not be shown until CET preferences are cleared.
Bill of Material
Unique Adjustments for Customer Own Material (COM) Parts
There is an improvement made when working with Customer Own Material (COM) in manufacturer snappers. Previously, all identical COM parts are tied in the calculation dialog, any part adjustments made will be applied across all.
Take a look at an example below, a FIKA office chair is placed in the drawing space, it has a default tag of 'FIKA-CHR-01' and also a COM that is applied onto the fabric. In CET 14.5, an intended part adjustment will now affect the entire office chair including COM part which is the fabric.
With the change here in CET 15.0, the fabric that has a COM is flattened out in a separate row of the identical individual tag. Making part adjustments is now independent and does not affect the COM parts.
Ensuring the bug on the chair gets its own deserved adjustments
- Use your manufacturer extension, attempt to create a Customer Own Material (COM) on your product snappers.
- In the Customer Own Material (COM) dialog, ensure you have all the fields filled up regardless of required fields.
- Apply the created Customer Own Material (COM) on any parts of your product snapper, then verify in the calculation dialog for the extra row of listing(s) generated for the parts that have COM applied. Ensure that making adjustments to the COM parts are only affected within itself.
Additional column of 'Textile Length' yardage (yards)
An additional column of 'Textile Length' yardage (yards) has been added into the calculation dialog for extra imperial information for fabrics or other materials. Do note yardage (yards) is not part of the regional global settings in the Control Panel and is not supported in drawing tools.
To use, enable the column of 'Textile Length' in the calculation dialog, which is defaulted disabled, in the Article view settings.
Should you need measurements in 'yards' for your fabrics
- In calculation dialog, enable 'Textile Length' column in Article View settings. Manual value input should be possible as it is not a dynamic field tied to any variables.
Order Export
PMX Format Export
For the love of Commercial Interiors industry, we have added support of order exporting in 'PMX' file format. This aims to streamline the integration of exporting an order within the ecosystem of a sales process.
Upon update completion of CET 15.0, there will be new option of 'PMX export' in the Order Export dropdown.
If you're not a big fan of Configura and Custom SIF
- Use your manufacturer extension snappers to perform 'Order export' of 'PMX Export' in Bill of Material and verify it can export successfully, ensure there are no crashes or performance hiccups.
- Load exported PMX file format into SPEC to ensure your manufacturer information are shown correctly. *If you have Commercial Interiors Library extension license
Categorization
Default Category for Item Tags
We have made improvements to user-facing texts generated by a symbol in CET to have at least one category assigned to them. This was done to provide convenience in managing the user-facing texts available in a large drawing for visibility reasons.
If your manufacturer extension has any user-facing texts or individual tags in specific view modes, all of them will now be assigned to a default category.
Example above shown brought to you by the trusty FIKA office!
- By using your manufacturer extension product snappers, go to a specific or installation view mode. With the user-facing texts or individual tags, ensure they are tagged to a default category of 'General Text' (if there are no manufacturer personalization) in the categorization dialog.
New features🆕
We're continuously improving in each releases to provide more features that brings more value into CET. Here's what you need to know, divided into different CET component areas.
CAD Improvements
CAD Material and Texture Import
There is an added support of importing CAD material and textures. CAD models with applied materials will no longer look bland set to default colors in 3D. However, the Autodesk Material Library is needed to load the Materials and Textures, check out the help article here. In the CAD dialog, there will be a new checkbox of 'Import Materials'.
If you have a CAD 3D model with material or textures applied, tick the checkbox before clicking on 'Insert'. Take a look below at an example where the pallets are textured in a grey material (CET 15.0 on the right) as opposed to the pallets without material and textures. (CET 14.5 on the left)
Non textured (left) and fifty shades of grey (right)
- Open CAD dialog, ensuring checkbox of 'Import Materials' is ticked, import your desired CAD file as a '3D model' and make sure it can be inserted into drawing successfully. Check that the material and textures are imported.
- Additionally , verify the correctness of the imported CAD file against a CAD viewer (AutoCAD, etc).
- Save and load drawing, ensure the imported material and texture is retained.
2D and 3D Drawing Tools
Quick Measure Tool
For many years users have wished for a speedy measure, the release of this new measuring tool allows for quick distance measurements and adjustments on the go. This handy tool is animation based and will not require any number of clicks, snapping or a specific license, the measurement is done automatically. It also comes with a few neat features which makes positioning and measuring snappers convenient.
No developer migration is needed for manufacturers. Hence, all types of snappers including imports like DWG, IFC, etc should be supported.
Quick measurements made easy
How to use?
Straight off the bat, this feature is disabled by default and can be *activated either by clicking on the shortcut key 'M' or enabling the tool in the 2D menu bar.
When enabled, selecting a source snapper will automatically create a measure with feature points (black dots) of the other target snappers in a straight line. Hovering your cursor to a different point in proximity will extend or shrink the measure from the source snapper with the display of the distance value in the middle.
When clicked on each point, a radial menu would appear with 3 built in features which include:
- Placing a dimension - When clicked on, the same measure will generate a single dimension string.
-
Set distance - Inputs a specific distance value to reposition the source to the target snapper. Eg:
This provides convenience in a situation where repositioning a seating from a wall with a gap of 500mm becomes a breeze to work on. - Select object - When clicked on, selection of snapper switches, in which the target snapper will now switch to a source snapper.
The distance between the snapper on the far right to the wall is measured at 1,971 mm
- Using your manufacturer extension, ensure this feature supports your product snappers. It should be able to detect the feature points with the outer bounds of the snapper. A measure should appear and is controllable with your cursor, along with the *distance value in the middle.
- Ensure all the built in features are workable within your manufacturer's product snappers.
- Verify that there are no obvious performance issues, animation should not be sluggish and freezes CET.
- When enabled, it is automatic and will create a measure as long a snapper is in selection. If changes to the drawings are finalised and no further positioning, alignment are needed, It's recommended to have this tool disabled or toggled off, as it may disrupt user's workflow when working on the 2D space.
- Try it out with a different unit of your choice. Change it in Control Panel > Region.
Quick Chain Dimensions
With speed and minimal clicks in mind, we're introducing Quick Chain dimensions. This improvement brings an agile and quick animation to construct a chain dimension across many different snappers in a straight line. There are no changes made to the chain dimension.
A click to start and another to end
How to use?
In Tools > Dimensions toolbox, there will be a new Dimension tool with a '⚡' icon. When clicked on, an animation will start. Beginning with a crosshair in 2D space, click once to start *dragging the measure line all across the snappers and click once more to end the animation, a chain dimension will be constructed. The feature points of the snapper that are detected along the measure will be converted into 'segments' of the chain dimension.
- Using your manufacturer extension, ensure this feature supports your product snappers. It should be able to detect the snapper feature points and construct a chain dimension at the end of the animation.
- Test associativity in the animation property, ensuring it still works with your product snappers. When associated, a blue dot will appear and will follow adjustments when the snapper is repositioned.
The rotation threshold of the measure can be controlled through the 'Step Angle' in Control Panel > General > Snap settings.
Styles Convenience
Selection of User Styles
Users have reported challenges attempting to find needles in a haystack, that is to search to make adjustments to drawing line and shapes and dimensions scattered everywhere in a snapper filled large scale drawing. This added support addresses the concern, where users are now able to make a selection of the drawing line and shapes and dimensions based on different text, line, hatch, area, dimension styles.
How to use?
This feature is now integrated in the selection query which supports adding the criteria of Text, Line, Hatch, Area, Dimension styles.
Example below shows a few drawing line, shapes and dimensions in different line styles. With the objective of selecting the green line style which is 'Collab style 1', is possible through the selection query constructed, it supports one or more criteria if required.
Making a selection of all green line styles
- Place drawing line, shapes and dimensions in different styles. Open 'Advanced Selection' tool and create a query based on your desired needs. Ensure it can make a *precise selection. If you have manufacturer specific styles, it would be great to ensure it is supported.
- Change any of the styles of the snappers in the quick properties, ensure the selection query is able to make a precise selection.
You may not be able to see the precise selection as in the animation above with the missing frame bound. Ensure in Control Panel > Views > 2D views > 'Display a frame around the selection in the 2D view' is toggled on.
Save User Styles Quickly
With the addition of 'saving' features, making changes to styles is more convenient through the quick properties. All of the drawing line, shapes and dimensions will now have 'Save' and 'Save as' buttons in edit mode of the styles in the quick properties. This aims to provide ease of style adjustments with minimal usage of Style Editor.
How to use?
- Clicking on 'Save' will keep the changes made to the features of the style in use.
- Clicking on 'Save as' will keep the changes made to the features in a newly created style.
Example below shows a few drawing line, shapes and dimensions in different line styles. With the objective of making a saved change to the green line style which is 'Collab style 1' is now effortless in the quick properties.
Changing line style width and color
- Place drawing line, shapes and dimensions in different styles (Incorporate manufacturer specific styles if applicable). Make any changes to the style in the quick properties and click on 'Save', 'Save as'.
- When it is saved, ensure the other snappers on the same style should reflect the same changes across, this would reflect in alternatives, blocks within the same drawing only.
- The change will also reflect in new snapper placement (if made default) and in Style Editor.
- Clicking on 'Save as' will prompt saving as a new style. When completed, ensure new style can be used in new snapper placement and a new drawing.
User Interface
CET Facelift
A long overdue change has finally taken place beginning with the most prominent areas such as:
- 2D, 3D Menu Bar, Toolbar
- Icons and color scheme
- Walls, Architectural, Drawing Tools and more to come...
To see the magic, simply just flick the switch beside your profile, to immerse yourself in the future of CET. Currently, CET will be defaulted to the old user interface. This is still a work in progress as many areas will be progressively improved in the later CET versions to come.
Using CET in the new user interface is not compulsory at the moment, but curious users are encouraged to try it out and provide us feedbacks through devsupport@configura.com.
Flick the switch, will you?
Core scheme phasing out 🗓️
When?
As you may have heard, we're in the works and discussions of retiring the old core schemes as early in Q4 2024. With this, we're highly encouraging our manufacturers who are still on core schemes to migrate to use propschemes as soon as possible.
Then?
With each completed migration, QA Support is always striving to keep the quality in check. Schemes is one of the core functionality of a manufacturer extension and we're leaving no chances on this. As a result, we strictly encourage visiting PropSchemes testing guide that we've prepared for your convenience.
Performance Testing 📊
Performance is a very important aspect that drives CET's usability experience. As we strive to provide more enhancements and new features in the later CET versions, performance is taken into strict consideration to ensure its consistency and does not introduce an unintended ripple effect throughout. With that said, we would like our manufacturers to run some basic performance tests, to make sure they are not affected.
Basic checklists
- To ensure the best performance possible, please switch off unused extensions, which will contribute to faster CET loading and startup.
- Test for possible memory leak issue using Window's Task Manager (Open using shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + ESC). Look for 'CETDesigner.exe' under 'Processes' tab and make sure overall memory consumption is not maxed out, with CET eating up most of it. Check that CET's memory consumption makes negligible difference between old and new, report if you experience abnormally high memory consumption by 'CETDesigner.exe'.
New Tool in Release Debug
Measure memory usage
A new tool to inspect memory allocation for packages installed in CET. This tool can be used to determine memory leak of certain packages if memory is growing overtime and not being release.
What you can do:
- To be used whenever there is a memory spike or memory maxing out in Windows Task Manager. Or unusual sluggishness or slowdown were felt while using CET.
- Open up Release Debug menu using Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F12. Click on "Measure memory usage". Some users might have clashes with Intel HD Graphics shortcut.
- The traces will be written to CET log file. Send the log file together with relevant information to devsupport@configura.com for investigation.
Response Monitor tests
We highly recommend using 'Response Monitor' under 'QA Tools' to trace the time taken for different actions done in CET. Compare the time taken for the same actions done between the old and new versions of CET. If time taken difference is of a huge margin, you may report to 'devsupport@configura.com' for assistance.
By using your manufacturer extension, we suggest checking time differences for these actions:
- System startup time
- First snapper placement, and subsequent continuous placement
- Stretching (check if its smooth and not jerky)
- Copy and Paste
- Creating Alternatives
- Save and Load drawing
- Material application in [Animation, Quick Properties, Customer Own Material, Scheme Dialog]
That's all we have for you!
The QA Support team would like to wish you all the best in your 15.0 Migration journey. 👍
Have additional questions?
Links that may come handy to you
Release and Migration Best Practices
As always, reach out to us at qasupport@configura.com if you have questions
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