Good point. Hopefully they don’t take down the forum, it is an essential source of information for all the users alike. The forum nicely complements the Knowledge base for all edge cases and other peculiarities of the software. But also, its a nice platform to discuss optics in general. I also strongly believe it should be available to anyone because some of the information that is being shared is relevant for the whole optics community (even if they don’t use OpticStudio), and if anything it makes for some good advertisement for OpticStudio.

David

Replying to bump this back up to the top of the list 

Sean has a straightforward question that deserves an answer.

Didn’t seem to help 

Two weeks in chaps, can we get an answer to this? Or does nobody know?

This is also important to me.

This is very important to me, too.  The user posts are sometimes the best with helpful and detailed answers. There are many instances in which a non-proprietary question can be posed to the larger community than just a Support Request ticket, and there can be more experienced eyes looking at it...sometimes generating a faster answer, as well. This leverages the time and expertise of support staff.

I hope the excellent support of the Zemax staff continues, too, and we don’t have to work through another level or two of bureaucracy...

And the archived posts continue to be an important resource for me.

Knowledgebase Articles are great, but not all-comprehensive, and they actually lost some utility for me when the “original post” date got erased and replaced with a common date March 31, 2021 when they were apparently all ported to the new platform.  Thus we have no idea how old the version of OpticStudio is that they were written for.

One more time :)

I contacted the team at OpticStudio with the same question.  Short answer:

• “In the works” - not ready for prime time yet
• Forum will be copied over as to not lose content

I’m hoping this promises will come true.

We don't have an official date yet for the full migration. The messaging went up a bit early in my opinion as the only content being moved away from the site at this time is marketing/upcoming event content. As for support, everything is still available via the usual channels.

For the support side of things, we intend to migrate the user forums, Knowledgebase, and support portal to Ansys systems over the course of the next year and a half.

As for how this will affect the forums, I'm working to keep the change to your guys' day-to-day minimal. I am working with the Ansys forum team to ensure the Ansys forums have the same level of functionality as the ones we use now. Assuming that's the case, then the migration should be similar to the migration from MyZemax to the current forums. The data and user profiles should all be maintained. Hopefully the only change for users like you will be to the site's UI and how you sign in. Instead of using the Zemax single-sign-on, you will use the Ansys one. All in all, though, the migration should result in a smoother experience for everyone once complete!

Thanks for the update Brian.  I fear we’ll have another date reset like we did going from the original forum to myzemax.com and then from myzemax.com to this forum, but at least the content should be saved.  

If this group wants more autonomy from Ansys, perhaps it is best to migrate to Stack Exchange / Stack Overflow.

Hey Brian,

Moving to StackExchange will decouple the search of Forum posts vs KnowledgeBase articles, so my first inclination is to wait and see how Ansys handles the migration (do the copy over all the posts, are the pictures migrated correctly, are the dates/authors migrated correctly, is it still open & not behind a paywall).  If Ansys does the migration correctly, I think keeping the power users here is the best call. 

However, if Ansys loses some/all of the free information we have provided on the forum, then I think StackExchange is a very good idea.  

As a user, I find the forum to be a fine area for advice from the community, just like StackExchange.

However, as a user I do not consider it a viable alternative to bona fide support, of which I happily pay for in order to gain access directly to the Support Team.

I’m happy to participate in either and see value in:

• This forum
• StackExchange, and
• Support

-B

I don’t think it would hurt the Ansys share price if someone from Ansys Zemax actually answered the question here though. Why so shy?

Agree though about paid support not being replaced by fora.

Hi everyone, 

This thread was just raised up to my attention the other day, so I’d like to address some of the questions that have been raised. Apologies for our delayed response here, it looks like this thread slipped through some of our filters. 

That said, we do intend to migrate all of the legacy Zemax websites over to Ansys-managed websites. The exact timeline for when individual pieces will move is not set, but we intend to have everything migrated by the end of next year at the latest. Regarding the messaging that prompted this thread, it was intended to announce the beginning of the migration, with marketing material from the main Zemax.com site moving over to the Ansys-branded webpages; certainly, the messaging could have been clearer here. 

Regarding the concerns around maintaining functionality and user experience for the Zemax forum post-migration, we are making this a focus of the transition. @Allie and I are actively working with the Ansys engagement teams to explore a couple different options for the Zemax forums; whichever way we go, we are working to make the transition smooth and maintain the experience standards we’ve developed on this forum. We’re also considering how we can expand this community to include the other Ansys Optics forums, particularly that of the very vibrant Lumerical community. I expect we’ll have some more firm plans regarding the migration towards the end of September.

In the meantime, if any of you here would like to talk about this transition, share your thoughts on what the most critical functionalities of our forums are today, or get involved in testing of the new site, please let me know. Allie and I would love to chat here or set up a call to talk privately. We really appreciate the support you’ve provided us to make this forum such a great place, and we’re looking forward to maintaining it as we continue our transition into Ansys. 

Thanks, and I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Cheers,

Nick

Thanks Nick that’s really helpful.

I think you may need to review your ‘filters’. When the topic was raised a month ago it was in direct response to the post on the main website, and several of us continued to post replies so that the question didn’t let lost and go unanswered. The radio silence was its own message.

• Mark 

Hey Nick,

Thanks for the response.  When you said:

That said, we do intend to migrate all of the legacy Zemax websites over to Ansys-managed websites

Does this mean that this forum on Zemax.com will be moving to something like the Photonics forum on ansys.com:

https://forum.ansys.com/forums/forum/discuss-simulation/photonics/

Namely, that you can still view forum posts without logging on but you have to have an active account and login in order to post a new thread or answer an existing question? 

Zemax in the past tried to put all their content behind a paywall and I think that is what everyone on this thread is concerned about...all people who have replied to this thread have been around during My Zemax times and I think we fear a return to the dark ages of a paywall.  

Hey Michael, 

Hope you’re doing well! To answer your question, yes, we will be moving to something like what you’ve linked. We’re looking at a couple different options, one of them being the platform that hosts forum.ansys.com. That said, we’re trying to keep the functionality of the post-migration forum as similar as possible to that of this forum. For the forum you’ve linked, we’re talking with the team who manages the platform to identify what development is needed to match what we have here today. On that note, have you spent any time poking around the Ansys forums yet? If so, any thoughts/feedback you’d like to share?

Regarding the topic of a paywall, we don’t intend to change the access standards we currently have in place for content hosted on legacy Zemax platforms (namely the forum and knowledgebase). We want to at least maintain (but ideally enhance) the experience we have in place today, and part of that means not adding paywalls to already public content. That said, to post on the forums, users will, of course, need to have an account and be logged in.

On a related note, as we migrate to a new forum platform, we will need to integrate the Ansys SSO for our Zemax users; this will likely require accepting new T&Cs, but we should be able to do a backend migration for everyone so that end users don’t need to re-register manually. We want to streamline this process as much as possible so that the transition is as smooth as possible. 

Let me know if you have any follow-up thoughts/questions here, and I can clarify or expand, as needed. 

Cheers,

Nick

Hi all,

I’m reigniting this discussion as I recently received questions about OpticStudio via email. When I asked the people why they didn’t write their question on the Community they said they couldn’t register for an account. I’ve always assumed anyone could register for an account, but it doesn’t seem to be the case, at least not anymore. I tried registering for an account with my private email address but I wasn’t successful. I was wondering if this is part of the migration and what is the standing with regards to users who might not have an active OpticStudio license, can they still apply for an account on the Community? I would find it beneficial if anyone can ask questions in the Community but I also understand that it means more moderation. For comparison, I’m able to post in the NI (National Instruments) community with my private email address and not having a LabView license or NI equipment. Interestingly, in the NI community, users can also moderate discussions depending on their level of contribution.

Take care,

David

Hi @David.Nguyen , 

Thanks for the raising this here. We’re checking out the issue you describe, so we’ll circle back after confirming how things look on the backend around registration. Stay tuned there. 

That said, to provide some color as we continue to move into the Ansys systems, the Ansys Community Forums are open access to anyone. You just need to go through a self-registration process. I’ve gone through the process with a couple different emails, and it’s quite straightforward. We haven’t yet migrated the Zemax Community over to that platform, but when we do, it’ll mean broader access to the Zemax forums. 

As I’m sure you know, historically, we’ve limited access to the Zemax Community to users of OpticStudio (and now other Ansys products). This was a decision we made, in large part, due to our past experience with excessive amounts of spam on the old legacy Zemax forums. We don’t expect that to be so much of a problem in the Ansys forums. 

Let me or @Allie know if you have any questions here, and we can chat more, as appropriate. 

Cheers,

Nick

Hi all! Just an update here to let you know we re-worked our registration page. It is now live, viewable when you try to sign in:

Please note - as Nick stated, new registrations for the Zemax Community are limited to users of Zemax software. The Ansys forums are open to all, and will feature more Zemax content soon .