Apologies for the Trekkie parody but InfoCenter really does take “Help” from being “Just another menu” to a true information resource for the user. It combines AutoCAD help and Communication Center features with powerful search and adds one very cool new feature 
.
The screen capture shows the InfoCenter interface which sits in the menu bar enabling search and access of these resources:
- Help: Searches across multiple files and presents merged results in a dynamic results menu. You see the results from the Application Help, New Features Workshop and Customisation Help in one interface.
- Communication Center;
- “Channels”(from Autodesk);
- Live Update Notification and Subscription Announcements
- Articles and Tips
- Featured Technologies and Content
- Product Support Information
- User RSS Feeds; This is the cool new function.
- It installs with feeds from the Autodesk product related Blogs, Discussion Groups and Knowledge Base.
- Users can also add/remove their own blog feeds. An unscrupulous Cad Manager could load his own blog feed to boosting his FeedBurner stats
- CAD Manager Channel: This is a RSS feed that the user can not remove. In the capture you see my blog feed but I will create a company wiki/blog feed with CAD related updates for the real deployment (honest!)
- Favourites: Save links to those frequently accessed topics here!
InfoCenter has a CAD Manager Application which allows the CAD Manager to control the Users ability to access/edit display of content & settings.
It’s one place for information access from local help, local company web/intranet/wiki feeds or the Internet – a true AutoCAD “InfoCenter”.
UPDATE 22–02–2007: Jimmy has a great post about the CAD Manager Utility which includes some InfoCenter controls:
