Using copies of Public Documents

michael3424

The gear designer document that someone uploaded and discussed recently looked useful so it seemed a good idea to make a copy for myself.  I'm on the free plan, don't care if anyone else sees my gear mods, so making he copy public seemed logical to me.  That is until I pondered the idea of hundreds or thousands of other users doing the same thing.  Seems to me that the Public space could soon be populated with many sets of replicated documents if others do the same.  Consequently finding files in the Public space could eventually get real messy, if it isn't already.  I haven't spent much time there lately, other than to open a link from a member's post.

What are the communities thoughts on this?  Is it OK to make Public copies willy nilly or is there a better way, other than going Pro.

stevehess

Hi @michael3424
A very thoughtful message indeed.....  Presently the best workflow is to simply make those documents public as you suggested.  We certainly want to encourage use of public models.  In the not-so-distant-future you will have better ways to filter and find public documents (favorite author, topic, application, etc) which will help you reduce the clutter of the public space.  But for now, copy and reuse of public docs is the way forward.

3dcad

Might be a stupid idea since I have only used very few public docs or space but..

What if copying public doc to public would actually just make a version&branch with copier's name:
Gear Designer - main
Gear Designer - 3dcad

In some cases it would serve better to have all the versions in same public doc. This should be optional and if user later makes doc private s/he should be able to select which branches to include in private copy.

brucebartlett

@3dcad
+1

Yes this is absolutely needed. I'd vote for an option for the creator to allow anyone to add branches to their public doc. This would make it much easier to help people from this forum after a document link is posted. It's not hard to copy and a public doc to trouble shoot for someone but a branch seem like a better workflow while also exposing the power of these features to new users. 

michael3424

@stevehess - thanks for confirming my guess.

@3dcad & @brucebartlett - I see the value in that suggestion but for something that may be commonly used, like the gear generator, couldn't that create an unholy mess, if 500 users add their own branches?  I confess to lack of experience with branching, though.

_Ðave_

@3dcad although public I would be using that document in my personal project and wouldn't want any alterations to my document.
For that reason I feel this isn't a good suggestion.

@brucebartlett your suggestion is fine as a owner option only, Certainly not by default or automatically.

stevehess

Remember, anything contained in a version is immutable.   So, in (near) future Onshape, you could insert content from a public model into your design with full confidence that your content will never change. Said another way, a user could create a document containing a part or assy, version that document, and make it public.  You then reuse that part or assy from the public document (actually from the public documents 'version') in your design knowing that any future changes to that public document will not affect you.

The crowd-source public model where anyone can create a branch is an interesting idea.......

3dcad

_Dave_ said:

@3dcad although public I would be using that document in my personal project and wouldn't want any alterations to my document.
For that reason I feel this isn't a good suggestion.

You would own that version and branch and no-one could alter it in any way but you. Document would be like a folder with many users file copies in it. Only thing different to having a fresh copy would be that everybody would see easily how many branches have been made and would be of course able to create a new branch of someone else's workspace.

Version/branch list would need some update to support thousands of instances but I would still like this better than having thousands of duplicates in public document list.

@stevehess I had possibility to sneak peak into (near)future recently, I'm really excited!!

_Ðave_

Really, Why would I want all these branches in my personal document, It;s enough trouble sorting my own branches. Not to mention how much of my storage it will take and slow down my performance.

3dcad

Just issues to be sorted out.. or maybe the idea is stupid

Thankfully, we are allowed to just throw ideas in air without any responsibility and it's Onshape's work to pick up the best ones..

_Ðave_

I suppose the simple answer is to just pay the $1200 and I won't have to worry about such issues.

ky_ba

I think the solution would involve a forking - merging model similar to what git repos use. There is a base part, others can copy it at will, and when they are done with their changes, the original part owner can be notified to merge the changes back in from the copied part. Thus, the original part doesn't get bogged down with hundreds of branches, and many people can contribute.

Something that needs to go away is the massive amount of public documents with no organization. I don't want to see them unless I search for them. If the ability to merge two parts together was allowed, then the decedent parts could be listed nested under the original part. If a copy were truly desired, than the link to the original part could be broken.

Unlike source code which can be kilobytes per file, over a documents history care needs to be taken so that the file size grow out of control trying to store all the change history.

shashank_aarya

I am not sure how my idea will work. I feel that owner of the document should able to set restriction to create number of branches.Suppose I am not much concerned about my document which is made public, I will not set any limit but if my document needs to be very clean I would set some rules for creating the number of branches. If any user really needs to create branches he/she can make private copy.

michael3424

@shashank_aarya  +1

_Ðave_

@shashank_aarya  +1

viru

@shashank_aarya +1