An Option to copy and open a part to be edited differently from the original. And other addons.

christopher_hurt

A idea that I have (if this can truly not be done yet or I just don't know yet how.) is to have the ability to select a part in an assembly, and be able to copy it and automatically create a new save. For example how this would be accomplished:

1. Select part in Assembly tab.
2. Right Click on part to open menu bar.
3. Then create new part from part. (would be added in a category that has part options)
4. This will open a new Part studio tab to edit the part without effecting the original part.

Useful uses as example:

• To easily create a copy of a board that must be modified to accommodate an object through it with complex supports.
• Many parts can be based off of one part with small or major changes.
• Repetitive object do not be edited while using the source for the object's as a reference.

Those are a few examples how this simple add on to the right-click menu can create a different part fast and easy without trying to dimension a brand new part.

Second please try to add a button to cut extrudes from the the sketch plane.
Like the rectangle in the sketch menu with the drop down, but instead of just plane extrude please add a drop down with cut to make it simpler to understand.
Thank you for reading my post, I hope these suggestions will be considered in a new update. Chris a friendly user of onshape, a great in-browser CAD! Please reply!

traveler_hauptman

@christopher_hurt It sounds like these would make your workflow better. I suspect the Cut-Extrude button is not likely to be implemented anytime soon. However you can add it to their request system using the feedback tool while logged into cad.onshape.com (?->feedback)

I'm not sure how much you've used Onshape yet so apologies if you already know the following:

There are a few ways to reduce repeated work (with more to come). Part studio tabs can be copied and pasted between documents. If you are only after one part in the studio, you can copy a whole studio and then apply a delete-part tool too the ones you don't want. It might feel a bit odd but it does the job.

You can also make a copy of a part in a different studio of the same document using the 'derived' tool. In this cases, changes you make to the original will propagate to your copy.

Finally, if the reason you are making a copy is to try some ideas without ruining the original, take a look at the version capabilities of Onshape. You can create a version branch, try things out, and then re-open your main branch which will be unchanged.

Capabilities that Onshape does not yet have include: Configurations, so that you can have a bunch of parts that are the same except for a few parameters. External references (Derive from external) so that you can have a document of common parts that multiple documents use and receive changes from.

andrew_troup

I support everything @traveler_hauptman wrote (as usual!)

Just to expand on why I think you're possibly not going to get much traction with your second request:

One reason Onshape doesn't offer several user interface options for arriving at common task triggers like "Extrude- Cut" is that they are trying to come up with a minimal interface which will work on tiny screens (phones, for example)

Moreover, and more generally, they're trying (commendably) to do more with less. 

Perhaps even more importantly, though: there are a large number of present and future features which can operate as either a solid body creator, or a solid body remover (ie, a cut): Extrude, Revolve, Loft, Boolean combine, etc etc. 

The Onshape ethos (which I personally support enthusiastically) is to take the exact same approach to providing all these facilities (and others, like surface creation), exactly the same way for every tool. With a minimum of entry points. So at the top level, we choose a feature type, then we cascade down through choosing whether it adds or subtracts from the model, and whether it does so to solids or to surfaces, and so on down through decreasingly fundamental and increasingly specialised options.

So what you're suggesting would, (by the application of consistency), increase the toolkit by an order of magnitude. Each feature would need a "Cut" option at the top level. And I reckon consistency is under-rated: it greatly reduces cognitive workload (a big issue when doing tricky modelling). It's what lets us walk into a darkened room in a house we don't know well, and find the light switch.

Having said all that, it has to be conceded that Onshape could reasonably make an exception for extrusion, the most basic tool in the kit.

However, for every user who only ever uses Onshape for extrusion, there must be scores or more who use most of the tools most of the time, and it's probably not sensible to impair operations (and consistency) for the majority in favour of the few.
It would also, arguably, be misleading: the software is uncompromising, necessarily so, because it is setting out to do something really hard: industrial strength modelling on consumer-strength hardware.

christopher_hurt

Thank you I can see where you both are coming from. I will say that it makes sense for the developers to minimize the menu selection to ease the "flow" of the designing. Thank you for responding to my suggestion and please understand I am just getting started in Onshape. I am just seeing and "testing" Onshape as it is in beta, providing suggestions and posting them to see how others respond.