PowerCADD Direction

[[email protected]]

Alfred’s forum posts and notes to beta testers regarding WildTools 10.6 have caused some confusion about the direction of Engineered Software and PowerCADD. This email/post is to clarify Engineered Software’s direction regarding PowerCADD.

In 2014 Engineered Software began the conversion of PowerCADD to the Mac’s 64-bit architecture. The first of that conversion was released as 9.1.4 which removed a large swath of dependence upon legacy system routines. Later 9.1.6 was released which continued that effort and added numerous stability and performance improvements. WildTools 10.1.3 was released at that time as well. Since the release of 9.1.6 we have continued the improvements to PowerCADD and the addition of additional features to WildTools. There was to be a coordinated release of these improvements with PowerCADD 9.5 and WildTools 10.x.x. However, Apple moved faster than expected phasing out the 32-bit libraries which PowerCADD 9 and WildTools 10 are dependent. Seeing the speed with which Apple was obsoleting the 32-bit architecture, the interim PowerCADD 9.5, which still supported the 32-bit OS, was set aside so as not to waste additional development resources on the now-obsolete 32-bit MacOS. Our full attention, beginning in 2018, has been on rewriting the core of PowerCADD and its interface to the 64-bit architecture. We expect the 64-bit version to be released as PowerCADD 10 late 2020.

The PowerCADD 10 supports many of the most user-requested features which were impossible to retrofit into the 32-bit PowerCADD 9: dark mode, tabbed windows, full memory access, fully revamped plugin architecture, modern Cocoa interface, 64-bit performance and more. PowerCADD 10 remains the familiar PowerCADD platform you know.

At Engineered Software our entire focus is to make a clean and absolute transition to the 64-bit OS. As such, no additional development is expected to 32-bit PowerCADD 9 outside of maintenance release.

Todd

[Keith Renton]

Hi Todd

Always good to get direct feed back from you and that to hear you are hard at work on a significant upgrade to PCadd. Keep up with good work.

Regards

Keith

[patrickm]

Thanks, Todd. We appreciate hearing from you.

cheers,
patrick

[arogerr]

Any news on the 64 bit version of PowerCADD? Are we reaching end of use for this program?
I may have to make a decision soon that I don't want to do. Haven't been able to update my OS because of PowerCADD and don't feel like jumping through hoops using Parallels.
Please someone advise...

[RRichards]

The state of PCADD is unfortunately mostly unknown. Engineered Software has never been able to keep schedules and has NEVER been open with users. With WildTools it is without a doubt the single best 2D cad program ever made. This said, I know that in a year without a 64 bit solution I will have to keep a separate computer just for PCADD as the rest of the world is not at a standstill. I am teaching some employees CADD but without a future-proof solution they will choose another application and that will be the end of a long relationship. This is sad.

I have used Macs since the original in January 1984 and I have always used the most recent OS versions, even some horrible betas. I'm now two years behind and some of my software is now dependent on Catalina and soon will require Big Sur. It's hard to express my level of disappointment.

Ralph

[arogerr]

Thanks Ralph for your input. I'm feeling the same way. I may have to keep two computers just for PowerCADD until I can transition to something else that is not AutoCAD. I'm a happy user since the PowerDraw days in the 90's! Maybe us old users aren't worth updating the program anymore?
I would agree that the program Developers should be more forthcoming to their users. If they are phasing out, then just say so!

Frustrated user like yourself...

[jfindlay]

Hi Todd,

Thought I'd check in with you to see if the update is still planned for 2020?

Thanks!

J Findlay