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We always like to know more about our users, so we thought we’d run a quick poll to hear back from you about how you first encountered AutoCAD WS.
Was it word of mouth or seeing a demonstration that convinced you?
Did you go looking for something else and wind up with AutoCAD WS or is it everything you were looking for?
Let us know.
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We’re constantly thinking of new ways of making AutoCAD WS more accessible and easy to use. One of the good things about FTP or DropBox is that it allows you to access the contents of your account as a simple folder on your desktop. Today we’ve released a feature that allows you to do just that with AutoCAD WS.
With this new feature you can create an AutoCAD WS folder on your PC or Mac that you can use to upload files by simply placing them in that folder. These files will be immediately available to you from your Web browser, iOS or Android device. Downloading a file from your account is equally easy -- just copy/paste or drag & drop the file(s) from the folder to anywhere on your computer.
Sounds interesting? -- here’s how to learn more. We’ve added a new tutorial with step-by-step instructions on how to create an AutoCAD WS folder on Win XP, Windows 7 and OSX.
We’ve also made this short video showing you how to set this up and show how easy it is to upload and download files to an AutoCAD WS folder.
We hope you enjoy these five tips for getting the most out of the AutoCAD WS mobile app. If you have a tip you would like to share with other users let us know and we’ll include it in a future blog post.
When you share a file, you can set the permissions so that the file can’t be edited or downloaded. This read-only version of the file is a working alternative to saving your work as a PDF and sending it as an attachment in an email.
After you have been working on a drawing in the field you can sync it back to your desktop by downloading it through the web app or the online tab in AutoCAD. You can even share the file from your mobile app and then download the DWG from the email you receive.
3. Offline indicationEvery file in your online account that has been saved locally on your mobile device carries a time stamp indicating the last time it was synced. This time stamp will let you know that your file is available offline.
If you want your friends and colleagues to enjoy the benefits of the AutoCAD WS mobile app, simply share a file with them. They will receive an email notification that the file is shared with them and an invitation to download the mobile app. Once they download and install the app the shared file will already be in their online account.
To edit text in your drawing, simply select an object and select the Edit Text icon from the toolbar. You may need to scroll the toolbar to find the icon.
Please note that only text objects are currently supported, not Mtext objects.
It’s official. As of yesterday, the AutoCAD WS mobile app has been downloaded over 1,000,000 (one million) times by iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users. In addition, our users have uploaded more than 1.2 million drawings.
This is especially exciting for me as I was the first and, for a long time, the only user of AutoCAD WS. I was thrilled when we reached our 10th user. Passing one million downloads within six months of launching on the App Store exceeded all our expectations. It tells a story of a million ideas being sketched on the go and a million projects designed in a new way.
Above all, one million downloads is evidence that our vision for mobile CAD is alive and kicking. We’re just at the beginning of a new era of design where it happens anywhere, in or out of the office.
The vision to create AutoCAD WS began in 2007 about two months before the first iPhone was released, well before mobile phones were expected to be “smart”. I was working as an architect. Every day, my work was happening in a different site – different projects involving different colleagues.
I had in mind a “light” version of my drawings which would follow me and be available, and always up to date, from anywhere. The evolution of the web together with the new capabilities of mobile phones created the perfect platform for my vision to become reality.
I believed so strongly in this vision that I left my job and dedicated myself to creating a product which would turn my vision into reality. Creating the technology behind AutoCAD WS was a huge challenge. We wondered, on occasion, whether it was even possible. It took us over a year just to display and edit a drawing for the first time on the web.
Even though a million downloads is a great accomplishment, I know that it’s just one milestone in our journey. We’re still planning to make the product’s design lighter and more flexible, and we’re facing more platforms, more devices and more user demands. We will continue to do our best to maintain the high quality of our existing products as well as the new products we are currently working on.
I want to congratulate the AutoCAD WS team for making it happen and to say “thank you” to a million architects, engineers, designers and managers who have joined our journey.
Iris Shoor, AutoCAD WS Product Manager.
