Workspace history - do you use it?

andy_morris

I would like your initial reactions about the 'Workspace history' functionality in Onshape (the clock icon in the toolbar). 

• Were you aware of the functionality and what it does?
• Have you used this functionality?

Some background:
We have Undo functionality for a document per session - when you close the document the undo stack is emptied.
The Undo 'stack' is personal too, it means if you are co-designing on a document the work you do can only be undone by you - avoids the messy situation of undoing other peoples' work.
The feature list shows shows you the order that features get rebuilt, but not the order in which they were created. It doesn't show you all the creations, edits, undos, redos, rollbacks etc.

The workspace history however, takes a snapshot of all the actions that are done on the document by all co-designers. Its all there from the creation of the document. You can click on a row in the history and see the model at that point in time. You can also 'Restore' the model to that state.

Given that background can you think of examples when you would use it?
What can we do to improve the functionality?

Andy

traveler_hauptman

I finally have enough hours into Onshape that I can reply to this...

I've been using the full window history to review how much time I've spent on a project. The 'more...' link does not pull down enough items at a time. Consider a CSV export.

Filtering would be nice. Especially for history items that don't change the model (Hide/Show & Rollback bar movements). Also to narrow down the list to items only from a certain tab.

Renaming usually happens for me in the middle of work on a part/feature so it's difficult to track when something is happening to the same feature. Maybe use the internal GUID (or whatever it is you use to index) and render the history list with the current name all the way back (even when the feature had a different name) or add detail to the Rename item so that the old name is shown ("Rename part: Oldpartname -> Newpartname")

Rather than clicking on a line to see the model at that time, I'd prefer a "view" link that I can right click to open in a new window so that I can compare the two models.

Sometimes when modeling, it's unclear what the best technique is. Since I'll most likely have gone part way down one path when I realize that I should test a different approach, I think being able to create a branch from a point in the history would be useful. That would allow me to test the other approach without loosing my current work. I think this is possible with a restore->save->branch sequence, but a single 'branch' link in the history would be more convenient.

It would be nice to have a little more detail in the history line or the tooltip. For instance I have "Edit: Front Section\nEdit: Front Section\nEdit: Front Section" in my history. It takes a good few seconds to view each one and then I need to dig into the feature to figure out what changed. It would be better to have a summary of the change on hand. "Edit: Front Section: [ Ins(Circle), Mod(25mm -> 16mm), Del(Coincident) ]\nEdit: BigExtrude: [ Mod(Symmetric -> To Surface) ]"

Ben_

being able to create a branch from a point in the history would be useful. That would allow me to test the other approach without loosing my current work. I think this is possible with a restore->save->branch sequence, but a single 'branch' link in the history would be more convenient.

Genius! I would second that!

fastwayjim

I third that. It's a great idea.

In addition, consider perhaps a visual representation (Flowchart? Map? Tree?) of the design history. I think the visualization of the multiple branches of design would be very helpful. I imagine it would be very helpful if a design lead could assign different branches to different designers, as they investigate different paths (and they could also observe time/effort spent on each design iteration!).

It certainly aligns with a "top-down" approach of designing, and catering to design leads (i.e. further up the chain) could help sell seats. You know, if you're in to that kind of thing...  

fastwayjim

In addition, consider perhaps a visual representation (Flowchart? Map? Tree?) of the design history. I think the visualization of the multiple branches of design would be very helpful.

Holy #@$! Nevermind, I just realized that the "Manage Versions" button does, literally, exactly this. Isn't there another thread around here discussing "Aha" moments? Well, this is mine...