Chaos in search for a Featurescript

dirk_van_der_vaart

It is becoming more and more difficult to search for a good featurescript.
Good example, look for a threadcreator, there are so many, what is the best.
There should be a good solution to sort all the featurescripts by catagory or something

S1mon

See this thread for or this thread more of the same, plus some links to some (not so perfect or current) guides.

You can also search for Ovyl or MBartlett or other key players when you're in the add Featurescript dialog (just try to avoid the "Copy" ones).

billy2

@dirk_van_der_vaart a small correction, it's never been easy.

I use Dave Cowden

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/6b640a407d78066bd5e41c7a/v/845d049782179b9faee8b6e6/e/c953720c264ce001f1a82dc1#comment631c87273e0e781876f7f462?jumpToIndex=1368&showReturnToWorkspaceLink=true

Axel_Kollmenter

Im using the fs from @sebastian_glanzner . Works perfect for me!

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/16744/new-featurescript-external-thread-2d-3d#latest

MichaelPascoe

Something like this could solve the FeatureScript issue. This is much needed!
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/8551/onshape-portfolio-show-off-your-models

Axel_Kollmenter

MichaelPascoe said:

Something like this could solve the FeatureScript issue. This is much needed!
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/8551/onshape-portfolio-show-off-your-models

Like an open source onshape part libary! Great idea!

MichaelPascoe

@Axel_Kollmenter Exactly. Currently there is no good way to share things with everyone. The forum is better than nothing, but I imagine Only a fraction of Onshape users ever visit the forums.

Axel_Kollmenter

I mean you can search the public page but in fact that every free user publishes his part automatically there are a ton of documents that arent ment to usefully shared to everyone. Do you know what I mean? Would be nice if onshape got its own implemented libary like grabcad or thingiverse.

billy2

@Axel_Kollmenter why don't you start one? 

I agree, a fs library of standard functions would be nice. To create one, someone has to start it and share with other authors. The public space would never work because you're forced to make copies of it.

OS is a collaborative environment, why aren't we collaborating?

MichaelPascoe

Here are the different places custom features are currently listed:
https://www.onshape.com/en/features/custom-features by Onshape
https://featurescripts.bubbleapps.io/#!  by @MBartlett21
https://github.com/dcowden/featurescript by @dave_cowden

These are great attempts, but none of them are intuitive for a daily Onshape user. It would be great to have a built in "Feature Store" that was intuitive for all Onshape users to access from the tool bar.

billy2

I haven't seen Dave Cowden in years and Morgan still bounces around occasionally. Bubble was a 1 click website builder and didn't have the functionality to scan the OS universe looking for cool feature scripts. Morgan had to pick and maintain the list.

@NeilCooke does a great job reviewing feature scripts but never had an aggregator that automatically created a list of feature scripts. I like the newsletter Neil is currently creating and hope he continues that. Neil created the release format that many have used when publishing a feature script but even those are hard to find.

I was going to use the API to curate a list and rank by popular votes but was advised OS was going to do it. I kind of wish I would have done it now since I've never seen a good list. I still have the code on my site but haven't worked on it for a while. You do realize that when quarrying the public space, there's a ton of activity. You might kill a server just trying to keep up with 1st time submissions. My site doesn't currently scale and I'm not sure I'd point a load balanced server stack at this task. It could get expensive.

When I get some time I'll poke around and see if I can build an aggregated list. I won't do it manually but will see if I can get a computer to do the work for me.

 

Axel_Kollmenter

Regardless of the fact that I currently have no time for such things, I also have no idea how and where to begin. I know that the onshape team is busy with enough other things, I just said that it would be a good idea in itself.

billy2

It's a great idea. I'd contribute.

MichaelPascoe

I'll help @billy2!

What if we make a "Custom feature store" app and have a pop out panel on the right side of the screen? The features could be free if the author wanted, but that name gets the point across. 

dirk_van_der_vaart

Thank you all, this is what I was hoping for.
Discussions like this will get us somewhere.
I would like something like a folderstructure, all threadcreaters in 1 folder etc. etc.

billy2

I've been scrolling for an hour trying to find the bottom of the list. 



From the user interface it doesn't look like you can ask for an ordered feature studio listing. The good news is you can ask for feature studios only. With continuous scrolling, it's a finger exercise to get to the bottom. I gave up flicking and never reached it. 

I did inspect a lot of them and we'll have to filter the guys who wrote feature script, a lot of the standard library comes up, go download the standard library, it shouldn't be on the list. Dave Cowden's thread creator has been copied and duplicated a thousand times and it would be nice to filter the original author. Neil Cooke's beams is all over the place and since it's been released, it should be filtered. We can check for a pdf and add it to our index. It'd be nice to have all those feature scripts come front and center.

And then we'll need to add this one for sure:


@MichaelPascoe if you want to put it inside onshape, I'll give you a curated list through an rest api call. Let's see what happens, I'm going to build and viewer & editor first to curate a list on my server. I'll share a link once/if it's running.

xTimRice

I too would love to see a more integrated list of valuable custom features in the product. Right now I believe the best way to see the "curated" list is to click Add custom features > FeatureScript Samples:

MichaelPascoe

@xTimRice I think that is only a list of the Onshape approved fs.

We are going for a public library of neat custom features while keeping the following in mind:

• No duplicates (ex: thousands of copies)
• Sort by type, author, usefulness rating, downloads, etc..

billy2

More good news, I've got the feature script list:



I'm going to move it to my server next so I can parse the response.

I'll post a link when I get it behaving.

sebastian_glanzner

It was during the last Onshape Live meeting, if I remember correctly. 

There was an opportunity to talk with Onshape developers about FeatureScript. 

I mentioned that we need a "store" for FeatureScripts where we can find and review them.

I also mentioned the website thingiverse for 3D printed models.

There you have the original file and "remixes" (which are copies that have had something added or changed). 

FeatureScript is great, but it could be taken to the next level with a store or library.

billy2

I'm going to give it a try because I'm tired of waiting. I'm sure OS could do a better job having access to code I can't reach. Last night I keep thinking about  how to achieve a good listing and my 1st thoughts were to sort by links and then lookup by owners ID. This will put the best on top and will allow you to see all of Evans contributions easily.

I've stubbed the page out on Rusty Shed and it's listed in my menus under Onshape. Other than that it's not doing anything.

FS @ rustyshed.com

MBartlett21

@billy2

I notice you now have it listing a set of results from Onshape

billy2

Thanks Morgan, keep checking back it'll be working soon.

It's continuously scrolling now which I've always wanted to do, wasn't that hard.

I've spent a lot time understanding the structure and what can OS actually do. I now understand the issues with a clean listing and an understanding of a humongous database structure. I think they need to add more search indices for searching feature scripts. In the meantime...... 

I'm going to build a temporary cache database from OS that'll serve up a clean listing while we wait. They can build something far better than I can once they get the time. I'll still have to troll their database to keep the databases in sync. Maybe I can prototype something useful for people to use.

Things I'm wanting:
-look up by name
-look up by ownersID
-sort by # copies & referred to
-sort by ownerID
-destroy copies (I want the original author to stand out somehow)

xTimRice

Maybe you could have a “featured” designation that you manually assign to the originals? To make them standout from copies. 

billy2

@xTimRice that's a great suggestion.

There's a parent field in Json and I'm thinking if there's no parent than maybe it's the original? You can also check the create dates and pick the oldest date. I'm using Dave Cowden's thread creator as an example, There's many copies that have more references than Dave's original and they're the same script.

My goal is to have the computer do all the work without me/anyone curating the list. Maybe that's a foolish idea.

Thanks for the suggestion,

caden_armstrong2

@billy2
The parent field for a document is what folder the document exists in.

caden_armstrong2

@billy2
You could curate the list by looking at the "likes" count for the document:
/api/documents/did returns a field called "likes"

More likes might mean it is better...

S1mon

I haven't been digging into this as much as @billy2, but I'm not sure "Likes" (or Links) is always useful. I thought I saw a lot of older FS with a bunch of "likes", but then some newer ones that might be better with not so many. It may be useful to have access to the count, and be able to sort by "likes" but it's not necessarily going to fully help. There are a lot of popular (likes, links) older FS which have been replaced by built in functionality. Some, like "Beams" has "(Legacy - use Frames feature)" in the name to clue people in, but I bet there are others which are lurking...

Ultimately we need the equivalent of an App store for FS (with reviews and some sort of vetting process), but this seems like a super helpful step in the right direction.

billy2

@cody_armstrong thanks for the parent definition.

No one uses like, they don't even click the I like my own script button. Reference (link) is the biggest tell and is the best indicator.

I'm going to add them all up and build one simple index. One big yes or a no, simple.

If this takes off I'll put it in the OS app store that way I'll know who you are and we can start voting things up.

MBartlett21

For something that is reasonably unique for the original copy in my scripts, I have been setting the description of the document to contain 'official'. The description isn't copied when the document is copied, which means that searching with description:official doesn't usually bring up any copies. This is also what I use in the view link in my signature.

NeilCooke

Good idea on the description. I put “official” in the version name but you can’t search for that.