Improvements to Onshape - September 14th, 2021

mfalkensteiner

We are in the middle of September and this release extends across all areas of Onshape! Let’s have a look!

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

CREATE FOLDERS IN THE INSTANCE LIST

To get a better overview and structure in the instances list, instances can be packed into folders to hide, suppress or delete these instances collectively. Suppression of folders in assemblies can also be configured to allow quick and easy suppression of instances.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/dce9ru2xv6?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

ADDING LABELS WHEN CREATING A NEW DOCUMENT

Labels can now be added directly when creating a document. As usual, you can also add or remove labels from existing documents later on.

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

REPLICATE USING A SLOT

The Replicate feature now supports the ability to replicate parts created using a “Slot”.

RULED SURFACE

A new feature called Ruled Surface was added to Part Studios. The Ruled Surface Feature creates a new or additional ruled surface from an existing edge or multiple edges of a part, surface or sketch region. For more detailed information please check out the help documentation here.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/jrbizh4l3k?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

DRAWING IMPROVEMENTS

CENTERMARK APPEARANCE

In the Drawing Properties fly-out menu there is now an option to customise the appearance of Centermarks. There are options for adding extended lines and for changing the line width, mark size, gap size, and color. The set values can be saved with drawing templates.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/mpy0ak25st?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

DIMENSION CONJUGATE ANGLES USING LINE TO LINE ANGULAR DIMENSION TOOL

You can now dimension the conjugate angle (360 degrees minus the measured angle) using the line to line angular dimension tool. For standard angular dimensioning, the Standard Dimension feature can still be used.

PROFESSIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

ALLOW USERS TO MANAGE ITEMS

Admins of Professional and Enterprise Accounts can now allow individual members to manage non-geometric items. This option is located in Global permissions for Enterprise admins, and Company settings > Preferences for Professional admins.

ALLOW COMPANY ADMINS TO ENABLE RE-RELEASE OPTION

Administrators can now enable an option on obsoletions to mark the obsolete revision as re-releasable. This option can correct situations where the creator of the release forgot to mark the revision as re-releasable.

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

USER ACTIVITY AUDIT TRAIL DASHBOARD

In Analytics, you’ll now find a User Activity Audit Trail report. This report shows all system level action performed by users, such as: adding new users, creating projects, and signing in.

EVENTS FOR ENTERPRISE SSO/2FA CHANGE

If you are signed in as an Enterprise Admin, you now have the option in the User Activity Audit Trail Dashboard to display the events “Enable or disable 2-Factor-Authentication policy” or “Enable or disable Single Sign On policy”. So an audit trail can be generated and downloaded that shows when these security policies were activated or deactivated for your Enterprise.

PROJECT FILTER ADDED TO RELEASE DASHBOARDS

In Analytics, a new option to filter for projects has been added to the Release Management dashboards.

ADDITIONAL COPY INFORMATION FOR IP TRACKING DASHBOARD

In the Dashboard for IP Tracking you will see a new column showing if a document was copied. This can be very useful to track if and when a document has been copied and who copied it to protect intellectual property by companies.

MOBILE IMPROVEMENTS

GRID VIEW FOR IOS DEVICES

On iOS devices, there is a new "Grid View" display option in the documents list which will display the document as titles, similar to the grid view in the web browser.

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

NEW CLASS: TEACHING A CLASS IN ONSHAPE

This course explains tools, tips, and best practices for educators to use Onshape in the classroom. Check out the new course here.

Please take a moment to try out these new features and improvements and leave your comments on the Onshape Forum. For a detailed list of all the changes in this update, please see the https://www.onshape.com/changelog changelog.

Remember: The updates listed here are now live for all users when creating new Onshape Documents and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.

Jeff_Anzures

Awesome! I can finally hide all my hardware! Thank you.

MichaelPascoe

Nice improvements, these look great! Ruled surface will be a time saver.

Thanks Onshape team!

bruce_williams

RULED SURFACES!!!  yes!  happy dance!!  Nice implementation of it Onshape.  

Nice release with instance folders, dwg and management improvements.

bill_schnoebelen

I was just asking for folders in assemblys yesterday. Dam your fast!

sam_holland

Huge updates! Love ruled surfaces and folders 
Thanks guys!

werty_werty364

Ruled Surface, вы покорили мое сердце!!!!!!!!! Это просто чудо, как хорошо что вы не отстаете от продвинутых САПР

marco_caron170

Finally i can bunch all my fasteners in a folder !

guy_rogel

255 users have been asking for over 2 years to have the option to draw external threads so they can make a simple screw drawing which is still not possible in OS, and you are dealing with the center marks colors.....I think somthing is wrong with your priorities 

john_mcclary

guy_rogel said:

255 users have been asking for over 2 years to have the option to draw external threads so they can make a simple screw drawing which is still not
possible in OS, and you are dealing with the center marks colors.....I think somthing is wrong with your priorities 

You can't say it isn't possible to make screw drawings

but I agree, it would be nice to have built in external cosmetic threads.
Until then, here are 4 options for you:

from fastest to slowest:
- split face where threads would be
- create a single helix to represent thread
- use the featurescript Cosmetic Thread to create a double helix Cosmetic Thread - Public | Cosmetic Thread (onshape.com)
- use the featurescript Create Thread to create a full 3D model of the thread PP_ThreadCreator Beta | threadcreator.fs (onshape.com)

Henk_de_Vlaam

Nice update!

But... the lines of the sketch rectangle icons are gone with me.

Brian_Tracy

The folders in the instance list is very nice. I have seen some crazy long lists that could use organization.

steven_elliott555

guy_rogel said:

255 users have been asking for over 2 years to have the option to draw external threads so they can make a simple screw drawing which is still not possible in OS, and you are dealing with the center marks colors.....I think somthing is wrong with your priorities 

@guy_rogel has a good point.  The improvement request forum page was created to allow users to voice opportunities for improvement and allow others to vote them up.  Many of the top 10 open items have been on this page for 2+ years (see attached image)
 


My organization has been asking for 3+ years on more sheet metal features and since then we have gotten hems & flipping the flat pattern.  3yrs of our patience is starting to running out.

Is the improvement request forum still considered the best place for users to upvote ideas?

GregBrown

steven_elliott555 said:

Is the improvement request forum still considered the best place for users to upvote ideas?

Yes, the improvement request forum is the best place - I can assure you it is monitored and tracked by Onshapers  (especially) including those of us involved in the planning and prioritization of future developments.

john_mcclary

steven_elliott555 said:

guy_rogel said:

255 users have been asking for over 2 years to have the option to draw external threads so they can make a simple screw drawing which is still not possible in OS, and you are dealing with the center marks colors.....I think somthing is wrong with your priorities 

@guy_rogel has a good point.  The improvement request forum page was created to allow users to voice opportunities for improvement and allow others to vote them up.  Many of the top 10 open items have been on this page for 2+ years (see attached image)
 


My organization has been asking for 3+ years on more sheet metal features and since then we have gotten hems & flipping the flat pattern.  3yrs of our patience is starting to running out.

Is the improvement request forum still considered the best place for users to upvote ideas?

I wasn't saying he was wrong for calling them out Just that it wasn't impossible to do the task.

Yes, I too am on the waiting list for cosmetic threads and many of the old requests you show above.
But hey, they finally got to one of those top requests at least

The best place it seems for improvement requests is:
- Own a pro account
- Vote on the forum IRs
- Submit Tickets with support
- Talk to your Onshape rep

One of those feature requests above was started by an Onshape developer. So it must be one of the best places to put in requests.

emagdalenaC2i

Nice update!!!
En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xclX77Jvlw

lougallo

steven_elliott555 said:

guy_rogel said:

255 users have been asking for over 2 years to have the option to draw external threads so they can make a simple screw drawing which is still not possible in OS, and you are dealing with the center marks colors.....I think somthing is wrong with your priorities 

@guy_rogel has a good point.  The improvement request forum page was created to allow users to voice opportunities for improvement and allow others to vote them up.  Many of the top 10 open items have been on this page for 2+ years (see attached image)
 


My organization has been asking for 3+ years on more sheet metal features and since then we have gotten hems & flipping the flat pattern.  3yrs of our patience is starting to running out.

Is the improvement request forum still considered the best place for users to upvote ideas?

When we built the forum and the improvement requests area, it was to add another vector of input to our teams. We have requests that come in this public forum as well as from all users directly to our support team.  In addition to this list, which is automated into our bug tracker and support tools, we talk to customers, partners, educators and internal teams for improvements and bug fixes we have to get on the plan as well. It is our goal to ensure we can hear from all angles what is a priority.

I completely understand looking at the improvements every 3 weeks and wondering when your most important improvements will come. I've been there.. .many of us here have.  I hope you believe that we are hard at work each release to try to get as many productive new features delivered in addition to growing the platform, stability and performance each release.  

Alex_Kempen

So funny story - somehow, the name of the error string document of my FeatureScript plate suite somehow made it into the official Onshape changelog for this release. I'm guessing someone at Onshape saw the name "plateErrorString.fs" associated with my support ticket and assumed my feature studio was part of the Onshape standard library? In any case, it's pretty funny:

ian_d_gardiner

Way to go Onshape team. Assembly folders will really help keep our instance lists organized. Cheers to @john_mcclary for patiently and extensively answering the thread question. Not only does Onshape have great developers, we have a great community. Thanks John

Alex_Pitt

A strong update. Tree folders look great; can't wait to start organising. @Henk_de_Vlaam I have exactly the same issue as you on my workstation. I see no edges on the rectangle buttons in the part studio sketcher. But weirdly, it displays as normal on my laptop...

Eleanor_Coffin

Henk_de_Vlaam said:

Nice update!

But... the lines of the sketch rectangle icons are gone with me.

This started happening for me too, along with a couple more buttons. I use Onshape in Chrome at 90% zoom, and when I go back to 100% they appear again. (But I've still been working in 90%.)

john_mcclary

Confirmed, even in Edge when you zoom to 90% or less it disappears

Eleanor_Coffin

john_mcclary said:

Confirmed, even in Edge when you zoom to 90% or less it disappears

Firefox doesn't display the same behavior, interestingly. The other buttons that have changed for me are the Projected View button and Sheets tab icon.

Henk_de_Vlaam

Strange. With the same settings they are suddenly back with me on my laptop. And I cannot get lost of them anymore

jakeramsley

Eleanor_Coffin said:

john_mcclary said:

Confirmed, even in Edge when you zoom to 90% or less it disappears

Firefox doesn't display the same behavior, interestingly. The other buttons that have changed for me are the Projected View button and Sheets tab icon.

Unless things have changed recently, Edge and Chrome both use Chromium's Blink rendering engine, while Firefox uses their own Gecko rendering engine which is why they have the different behaviors that they do.  What it looks like is that a combination of a computer's/display's resolution, the device pixel ration, and the zoom state of the browser is causing some icons to go subpixel and there is a behavior difference in how Blink is rendering them.

Hans_Ole_Leirvik

Folders in Instance List is great  , but I am missing the same in the Mate Features list.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

For ruled surface would be nice to have "up to body/ surface" end condition

devin_johnson79

Folders in the Instance list is a game changer! Well done Team. These are valuable changes. 

don_williams909

It's a Brand New Day!  Folders in the Instances tree is the big thing I've been wanting since I started using Onshape!  Woo-HOO ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

That said... one recommended change, when you click on the folder, objects within it should be highlighted in the model, and they are not.
But still great progress.

Next thing I desperately need are more font options, like simply Arial.

CBowers

I've never seen centermarks look like this. Should there not always be a cross in the middle and the line font should be the same as centerline? 

gerhard_swanepoel

Some nifty improvements. Thumbs up replicate on slots and ruled surfaces.