For those interested, I'm still on SharkCAD 12. At the moment, I cannot afford to upgrade as I've bougt too much hardware and other stuff.
I'll revist snd clean up typos/grammar as I find mistakes.
Short version:
So, now, one file I've been editing is at 270 MB saved. It'll now push around 290 MB if i save after doing show-all.
In terms of RAM, my machine in the task manager shows my files using around 900 mb to 3 GB. One or two times, due to heavy by-hamd movement of objects and doing lots of hide/show-all, I onve hit around 8 gb, and another time went off the scale, and so I don't know how much RAM was consumed. But, that has never crashed SharkCAD v12 on me.
I have well over 5,000 layers in my files withing months of starting or repurposing my files. It has over 20,000 curves/lines/splines/circles/polygons/bits of text. It has some 8,000 surfaces and solids.
Part 1.
I can't use the Navigator/Gumball since it instantly tears and prevents use of my screen. I reported it in 2022, but nothing became of it.
Occasionally, when I use the Gripper, whether early in a session (hours) or the files been open for days, clicking on a handle andndoing rhe slightest move boldens the dialogue box text, does something weid to the color tool palette, and prevents any further refeesh. I used to experience this in v9 (32 and 64 bit) and lost a lot of work (using a single screen, that of the laptop). Sometime in 2019 or 2020, because I was using multiple displays (PCLinux OS hosting win7 in VirtualBox) realized that I could STILL do alt-tab. I used to try it, but since the dialogue box was unreadable, I saved at the risk of trashing a file. Under two or 3 screens setup, I got into the habit of keeping the tool pallets onthe lower right small screen and file manages on all three, and Shark on the 27-i ch screen. This lets me copy the current file, suffix-ename it as "post-gui-crash lre-save", then hit Ctel+S and watch the file save. 99%of the time, that works, even though it hair-raising, heart stopping, and incredibly stressful. I always thank the Lords of Kobol wvery time I get to walk away from that. I also learned that computers and apps have feelings. It sems that 99% of the time I intensively curse Shark for some featue shortsightedness, the app will spontaneously crash on me as if it heard me and wanted to punish me. So, I take a deep breath, get up, wak aeound, and save-as before a crash can happen. Seriously. I'm saying this as if under oath.
I also reaffirm that since a file can crash at any time (and while I have fewer than ~10 files corrupted since ~2008, I DO every few days experience crashes. There's no warning, and no recovery of lost work since I turned off auto save. Since I frequently have to keep open one or two, sometimes 3 reference files, each of which is a saved-as 70 MB to 150 MB, it would be intolerable to open them all in one solitary instence of SharkCAD. My system operates offline, never shared with others, not in any factory, and I don't use activation cheats. So, I feel that under this constrained scenario, I can be forgiven for running as many instances as needed on the sole machine (not virtualized) as I can in the 48 GB it has.
Another major reason it'd be unfair to insist users do everything in one instance is there's still the stressful issue of the zoom decrementing with every shift-tab between files. When I set a zoom level, I need it to not arbitrarily change. I resolve this vexatious issue by running a second instance of Shark. I figure this out before 2015, and got no traction to fixing this issue. As I constantly do pickoff measurements of images or other files I created, and use a plastic scale to avoid getting out of a select or a tool mode, I absolutely can't tolerate shift-tab. Alt-tab is my friend in these cases.
It would be incredibly useful if Tim would nuke whatever matter is preventing him and team from maturing the layer tree management. This is 2024, and nobody out there should have 20+ year patent grips on common, basic, useful, sane, easy-to-implement user-friendly features — regardless of the app or the OS.
Anything in any layer should be draggable to anywhere except circularly into itself. Files between instances should be copy-and-paste capable , and if this is implemented, without dropping the objects' associativity or even the related tree. I resorted to ESWBS-like numbering just to get a grip on layer hunting. It would be nice if the Concept Explorer, Layer Manager, and Inspector had hot-jump buttons to help users erangle, search for, and manage layers. There for maybe 1 version, maybe v6(?) where it was possible to actually enter a search string to find layers. Then, it went away. If that went away because of external IP claims threats, I curse the name of amy eho offensively and perniciously use/abuse patent law or litigious behavior.
Cheers
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Part 2
Long version
My install of SCv 12 runs on an HP Victus I bought in October 2022. I upgraded ot to around 48 GB of RAM. It uses an SSD. It has a 15-inch display, which I don't use. I instead use an external adapter to connect a 27-" LG and two 21-" HP displays. I simply cannot wok on anything other than that visual setup given the scale of my ships and the enormous details — especially the curves, surfaces, and somids, much of which has associative links.
I had since late 2007/early 2008 forayed into ship design (hobbyist/dilettante, not a real marine engineer nor even a naval architect). As I've been too secretive about some of the inner details (blame it on a mix of paranoia, slowness, teust issues, and wanting to be a first-mover-advantage junkie).
I have pushed my files for years and only experienced few corruptions. Since I do a save-as either every 1 to 5 hours, and save-as with a new suffix, I can tolerate some occasional crashes. Srill, surprisingly, I've had fewer than 10 files go corrupt ever since 2008. The most recent corruption was a few weeks go, but I saved-as and didn't test my save before moving on.
My save-as results in thousands of copies of around 8 to 12 variations of my drawings. I draw the hull, decks, bulkheads, proxy machinery and furnishings, fuel and slop and waste and water tanks, and more. I've even finally since ~2022 designed 3 different types of propellers that earlier in-privacy dogged and demoralized me since 2011. I had to watch a dozen or so external-app YouTube videos in anything from Blender, to Rhino, toothwr apps to apply techniques to fill in my lack of knowledge or misuse of SharkCAD's tools to figure out a new angle of attack in Shark.
One disappointment tho is that moving the shaft, hub, struts, bossings, and blades results in the blades flying off int 3D space dosens to hundreds of meters apart. This has something to do with using polar arrays. I'm sure I reported it. I won't know of any fix until I one day upgrade. It seems the polar array when used at or near origin magnifies the blade separation by the time my shaftline is pulled aft to some 130 meters where it needs to be.
Part of the file size stems from not using external references. I quit using that feature because I integrate file changes too frequently, periodically fork the file, restructure my file arrangements, and eventually break or ruin links. Also, the huge disadvantage of making objects into symbols is that that step flattens the layers, collapses all the objects, removing the solids/surfaces associations. And, still, since the layers in a branch cannot be moved into another branch, I can't cooy and paste associativity from one file into another. So, all I can do is do excerpted exports of selected objects, remove unwanted layers, compact the file, then import inth the current working file. The disappointing thing is that my drawing looks like a lunatic creates it because it's simply maddeningly impossible to rationalize and as-necessary reorganize my drawing.
Since I can't drag and drop outsice of branchesor trees, I'm forced to live with related layers being scattered up and down the layer manager. By necessity, layer and object names grow, and the Inspector still, in v12, is not resizable sideways, and there's no hotlink or linked jumper to get Shark to overcome unreadable long names except the prefix the object or layer with letters or symbols to make the stand out in the Concept Explorer.
I will be selling my drawings, and I feel sorry for my victims. But, they'll have the benefit of being able to cherry puck and if necessary go to a competing app if layer management weakness unnerves them.
In terms of RAM, my machine in the task manager shows my files using around 900 mb to 3 GB. One or two times, due to heavy by-hamd movement of objects and doing lots of hide/show-all, I onve hit around 8 gb, and anothr tome went off the scale, and so I don't know how much RAM was consumed. But, that has never crashed SharkCAD v12 on me.
Something does make Shark crash. After or during an intensive session, I'll save-as, then go to do a compact before doing another saflve-as (to guard against damaging a file and being unable to step backwards one revision). As soon as I compact, BOOM, the app unceremoniously blows up. In 2022, that foeced me to retuen to timed periodic saves. Such saves are ok when my file saves-as to under 100 MB. But, when bigger (withine weeks or months of editing a new file), the save time starts to take about 1 to 1.5 minutes. As fast as I sometimes move around in my file, this has forced me to disable the automatic saves. Now, the one minute saflves serve to remind me to stand up and stretch. Perhaps the crashes occur when sone stack or heap or whatever loses links to something below, and a compact just pushes the app over the edge? It's only once or twice a month, depending.
So, now, one file I've been editing is at 270 MB saved. It'll now push around 290 MB if i save after doing show-all.
As for my screen hardware, I can't use curved screens. I need to sometimes place a physical kit model hull to the screen, and screen curvature would mess up attempts to measure things. I don't clone the kit model hulls. I reference the hull as a "parent hull" to make a new child hull. This is what real naval architects (as professionals) do, and it limits or prevents predatory lawsuits, distractive litigation , loss of customers (who don't want as a design firm one that gets mired in litigation drama), and so on.
Cheers
