Improvements to Onshape - July 30th, 2019

john_mcclary

@philip_thomas
I also strongly disagree. I would say only on very rare occasions do I have a circle in the center of a pattern, and half of that time would I assume it was going to be larger than the 4 hole pattern.

I like my hole patterns centered in a plate, the most parametric way to do this is with a center point rectangle, or construction geometry linked to part midpoints.
99/100 times there will not be a hole in the center, because that is where the body of the mounted object is likely to be. There is more to a machine than the motor mount or flange bearing 

Even so, MOST motors we use are 90° gearmotors  with take-up sub plates, not flange mounts.
which makes the assumption triple wrong, as I would need (3) separate 4-hole patterns to mount a motor,
1 - Motor bolts (Center of orange take-up plate)
2 - Take-up slots on the orange plate
3 - Take-up mount holes on the blue plate

philip_thomas

@john_mcclary - Love the feedback - thank you!
There are already internal email threads discussing this - it will likely change. 
Just to be clear - you, and everyone else on these threads are making the product better - that's exactly what we set out to do, build the best product possible by actually listening to customers

john_mcclary

That's why I love Onshape so much, the staff will listen and doesn't have the "we know better than you" attitude.
Can't please everyone, but you come pretty close some of the time.

Konstantin_Sh

it wouldn't be a problem if the holes snap to all the points of selected sketches, vertices are just too weak entities for this

nbennett

philip_thomas said:

@john_mcclary - Love the feedback - thank you!
There are already internal email threads discussing this - it will likely change. 
Just to be clear - you, and everyone else on these threads are making the product better - that's exactly what we set out to do, build the best product possible by actually listening to customers

I think the issue here is pretty straightforward: the new feature adds a hole to all vertices and sketch points, when it should be selecting only sketch points. This would allow users to manually choose what holes they want featured from their sketch by adding points.

However, this doesn't address the issue with center point rectangles which comes with a sketch point already at the center. I guess the alternative here would be to delete the point, or relation the sketch differently altogether, which is entirely doable. I rarely use center point rectangles partially for that reason, instead referencing the midpoint between holes from a nearby edge. But if Onshape really wants to take it a step further, then having a sort of filter like others have mentioned that allows the user to select points that shouldn't be included in the feature would also help.

Overall this is a great addition, and the potential is clearly there. Does this mean we can expect to find hole tables around the corner? Really been waiting for this one as there is no proper way to dimension many, many holes in drawings.

sebastian_glanzner

emagdalenaC2i said:

What would be the best method to use the vertices of the sketches?

Currently, points cannot be defined as construction geometry
And vertex of construction geometry entities are also included when the sketch is selected.

What do you think? 

I like the idea to manually turn the points into construction geometry!
This way we can create a centered rectangle, place point in the desired corners and turn the middle point into a construction geometry:

brucebartlett

On the email download link, is there a way to copy generate a link without the email.  i.e. create a collection of download links that can be put into a list but have the benefit of the timeout rather than using the link?  It seems to work if I just copy the link out of the email but needs the email to make it work. 

john_mcclary

Right, i had 3 assemblies from 3 docs, i just did the normal 3 dowloads and email to make it easy on the customer

brucebartlett

john_mcclary said:

Right, i had 3 assemblies from 3 docs, i just did the normal 3 dowloads and email to make it easy on the customer

It would be awesome to get a way to generate export/download link. Then you just gen and copy to a list in the email rather than multiple emails. 

romeograham

@brucebartlett
Being able to use the download links in my email (rather than an email from Onshape) would help me control my communications better too.

Half the time, those kind of emails end up in people's Spam folders, or (Updates or whatever) and get missed. This requires me to send an "I'm sending a download link in another email..." email.

(Also, many large corporations have very restrictive internet access rules, and downloading stuff from links is a no go for them....as crazy as it is, they are firmly in the Outlook era of attachments and managed connections.)

don_williams909

All this is all well and good, but I am still majorly hampered by not being able to create groups of items within the Instances Tree.  There's just way too much scrolling.
And again, having the Mate Features in the Instances Tree is another huge detriment.

brucebartlett

don_williams909 said:

All this is all well and good, but I am still majorly hampered by not being able to create groups of items within the Instances Tree.  There's just way too much scrolling.
And again, having the Mate Features in the Instances Tree is another huge detriment.

Agreed, large assemblies are hard to navigate. Folders or a tagging method for instances and mates would really help. The project I was just working, I also really needed a search tool for the assy tree as scrolling to find things in a list of 100's of part is time-consuming. 

mlaflecheCAD

@brucebartlett Good call...  I use CMD-F or CTRL-F in the browser to find things.  #webbrowsertricks 

Prachi

Would love to see folders in the assemblies and be able to put mates inside with the parts that they apply to. Naming mate features only gets me so far. Would be a lot less scrolling and trying to figure out what mates go with what. Basic list would be much shorter and easier to deal with. Been using folders in the part studio and loving it.

thibault_grad

Hi there,
I can't find the export option "Email as link". Is this option gone in the current version ?
Thanks,

mlaflecheCAD

@thibault_grad the option is there only if you have export permissions on your document.  To access the export option, right click on a document tab for a Part Studio, Assembly, Drawing or a Part/Sub-Assembly in the feature tree or the graphics window, and choose Export:


Then choose the email option from the "Options" dropdown menu

Henk_de_Vlaam

thibault_grad said:

Hi there,
I can't find the export option "Email as link". Is this option gone in the current version ?
Thanks,

It's only there when using a paid account. So, I don't see it at my free account.

mlaflecheCAD

@Henk_de_Vlaamthanks for raising this, I am checking with the team now.

mlaflecheCAD

@Henk_de_Vlaam @thibault_grad. This feature is not available for FREE accounts and is only available for STANDARD, PRO and ENTERPRISE accounts.  It was previously available for all accounts, but the decision was made to change this.