Tips and tricks 2017

3dcad

I thought I'd start new thread since I didn't quickly find any of the existing ones - please post all handy tips and tricks (no matter how obvious) you have found to be useful.

- For better performance on Chrome, check that you are running 64bit version

- I have experienced better view performance on large models using perspective view. 

- Remember to set up your shortcut toolbars in account settings and use that 'S' for popping up the tools.
  If you have extra buttons on mouse / other device save macro for 'S' key.

- Sometimes we can forget that we are working on browser and try to keep everything open in browser tabs/windows like files (which then keep timing out and also eat RAM). Nice way to bounce back and forth between documents and tabs is to use browsers back and forward buttons (hold LMB to show list in chrome). Saves clicks especially if having heavy folder structures in document tabs and many mouses have separate buttons for back/forward. 

robert_morris

A couple of general tips that have helped me get things done faster.

- Rename your features.
This takes just a little extra time when creating the part, but it will save you a ton of time later when you have to go back and edit it.
I never used to do this, but now that I've started, it's amazing how much faster editing can be since you are not wasting time looking for where the feature is in the tree.

- Learn the keyboard shortcuts.
This will save a bunch of time when creating a part. I also use the shortcut toolbar that @3dcad mentioned, but since it's faster to just hit a single key than it is to hit a key and then also click a button, I only put in the items that don't already have a shorcut key into the toolbar.

3dcad

I noticed some time ago that when you double click (LMB) sketch in modeling area it does the same as picking 'Show dimensions' from feature tree RMB menu. Very handy way to quickly show sketch dimensions without interfering workflow.

john_mcclary

Try to draw your sketches / features directly underneath the last "related" feature in the tree using the "Roll back Bar" to help group similar part features, and help keep track of which features are derived from others later on. Example: Don't draw a frame, then a bunch of other parts, followed by a gusset on the frame.

If you see "Red" in the tree indicating an error. Stop what you are doing and attempt to fix the error before continuing. Too often I see people just ignore their errors and say "I'll fix it later". While "later" may be adding more work and more stress to an otherwise simple problem now that you have a mess of other parts to work around.

Pre-position your parts in an assembly before using the mate command. Just get it close and facing the correct way. It will save you from playing with all the rotation/direction buttons in the mate menu. A mated part will tend to snap to the closest solvable position.

Never leave a sketch that is not "Fully Defined". There should be no blue!

If you accidentally exit a sketch early and it disappears, look for a blue message at the top of the screen that says "Recover Sketch". It will save you from having to do it again.

john_mcclary

Just stumbled on this one:

Ever try looking for a specific feature script, and 1000 other idiots  made a public copy of it and didn't rename it from the original author?

Yea happens to me all the time too..

but if you copy and paste the url of the feature script into the search tool, it will take you right to it.

NeilCooke

Wow @john_mcclary - what possessed you to try that? New one on me.

john_mcclary

NeilCooke said:

Wow @john_mcclary - what possessed you to try that? New one on me.

Was my last wild guess before starting an IR to include author name in the search tool. Now that I know this trick I changed my mind on the IR.

owen_sparks

My tips:-

(1) If using Onshape for more demanding models on a PC with on-board graphics then if you have the budget stick something like a Nvidia 1050ti graphics card in.  You'll go from 19 million triangles a second to 380 million and that makes things much smoother.

(2) Try not to model everything in one partstudio with a load of derives.  Multi-part design in one studio is great up to a point and certainly use it as appropriate, but if you have unrelated parts then model them in a seperate studio.  Your rebuild times will thank you.

(3) Attend Cody's webinars and read the help.  Even if you're familiar with OnS then chances are you'll pick up some helpful things you've missed. 

(4) Ask questions on the forum, many helpful folks willing to help...  Do add a screen-grab and preferably a link to a public doc though.

OwS.

billy2

When sharing a document:
-version it
-then share with editing rights

When opening a shared document:
-branch it and call it your name


It seems silly we've all share non-editable documents. It'd be better to open a document see everyone's thoughts in branches. You can always get back to the original. 


It'd be interesting for a major shift in sharing and use what this system was designed to do.

billy2

Oh, my tip

sketches can now handle 3D reference geometry:


You are no longer limited to 2d projected geometry like in SW. Above, dimension from circle center to face, not the projected edge of the face. 

Before 1995, we always advised to reference to the largest entity. vertices are smaller than edges, edges smaller than faces. Therefore the face is the best reference in this dimension above. To continue this thinking datums are larger than faces meaning the ultimate reference is always a datum. There is no datum to pick here, so pick the face.

With this simple rule 'pick the largest entity for your reference' you'll create robust models. But you can't do this in SW.   

billy2

mate connectors can tell a direction. Let's all assume that the "Z" is that direction.



So I'm patterning a component in an assembly and it wants to know a direction. I could easily pick an edge on the 80/20 rail but don't feel comfortable with this tiny reference. Looking for something bigger, more substantial. Moving up the assembly and looking for assembly reference planes which there are none ( this is bull!). Lou suggested a mate connector at the origin to gain access to the root coordinate system in the top assembly. Wanted to move my global mate connector up the "Mate Features" tree but it won't move. It has no dependencies so why not? In the future I need to add a mate connector to every assembly and insure this mate connector is located at the top of the "Mate Features" tree. Maybe I should ask for assembly templates so I can define my own assembly start part.

So patterning a component in an assembly with a mate connector. What direction does a mate connector possess? Well, I think an un-written industry standard is the "Z" axis of a coordinate system.

Well guess what that works.

billy2

3D references, ok, so maybe I lied? 

Can I make the reference from end of line to center of circle?:


Nope.

To make this reference assignment, the circle is projected to the sketch plane producing line. The assignment for this is actually to the midpoint of a projected line.  bummer.

This is the first time it didn't work in 3D euclidean space. So 3D referencing is 95% true.

3dcad

If you have complicated sketch or you wan't to test few different approaches all the way to extrude (or so..) - you can create restore points into history by accepting unfinished sketch and begin new edit. This is also good practise if you hang on bad connection.

I tend to accept complicated sketches with every 'milestone' and begin new edit in case it stalls and I need to re-login and see myself editing that same sketch.

This is not common problem but can appear if you need to insert large dwgs or so..

john_mcclary

Avoid too many sheets in one Drawing tab,

I overloaded a drawing with 23 sheets, with a hundred or so views. At that point I had to ask support to look at it, because it slowed down to an un-editable state.

Support is fixing the bug now, but be aware of shooting yourself in the foot. I think the lack of quick and easy printing of a drawing package isn't worth slowing down the entire detail phase.

Individual drawing tabs for each part should be a best practice in OnShape at this time

brucebartlett

Hi John john_mcclary said:

Avoid too many sheets in one Drawing tab,

I overloaded a drawing with 23 sheets, with a hundred or so views. At that point I had to ask support to look at it, because it slowed down to an un-editable state.

Support is fixing the bug now, but be aware of shooting yourself in the foot. I think the lack of quick and easy printing of a drawing package isn't worth slowing down the entire detail phase.

Individual drawing tabs for each part should be a best practice in OnShape at this time

The biggest advantage to the multiple sheet drawing is printing as 1, saving to a single multiple pages PDF and it also keeps your document tabs to a minimum. I have changed to doing drawings in their own tabs which enables drawings to be linked with an URL as I don't think you can get URL to direct to a specific sheet in a drawing. It would be nice to find a solution to print all drawings in a document or all drawings for a certain product structure.

john_mcclary

Agreed, thats why i tried single tab. To make properties and printing a one click deal.


but the drawing got so slow i could only place 1 dimension, then refresh the browser after losing connection. Then hope the dim was still there when it refreshed after 3 minutes.. then try again..  10 hour day, and i only managed to place 3 balloons and 10 dimensions...  

after working with support i decided to go with the single detail per drawing method, as the minor slowdown of printing 1 sheet at a time still will be 60 times more efficient

chrisjh777

I've also noticed that multi-sheet drawings in one tab (my preference), take much longer to refresh compared with single individual sheet drawings in separate tabs. 

john_mcclary

I just heard more from support, looks like this has more to do with many parts in the same part studio rather than the quantity of sheets.
It's something they are working on though

john_mcclary

Have a lot of variables? Or want to organize you tree in a visual way?

Try crating a blank sketch and using it to divide your tree up.
If you don't select a sketch plane it will stay red making it stand out even better.

philip_thomas

^^^ John, i like that one. Perhaps voting for feature folders might be a better solution!

john_mcclary

@Philip_thomas
I remember seeing that request a long time ago, I've already cast my vote on these 2:

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/29305#Comment_29305
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/6820/folders-in-the-parts-list-in-part-studios

philip_thomas

^^^^ Excellent. Sorry to sound like a broken record on this topic, but the way it works (as a gross simplification), is that for most 'stories' (a unit of work for the Onshape developers), we simply add up the votes for each thing and say 'this is the most requested thing', and then that's what we work on. There are other factors - votes by PRO users for instance, count for much more than votes by free users. That explains why so much effort goes into drawings when most free users would say 'i dont care about drawings'. To make you feel better @john_mcclary, feature tree folders are 'highly requested'. Read into that whatever you want  

owen_sparks

philip_thomas said:

...There are other factors - votes by PRO users for instance, count for much more than votes by free users. That explains why so much effort goes into drawings when most free users would say 'i dont care about drawings'.

I'm a pro that says "I don't care about drawings", does that mean I can use my vote to de-prioritise them again?

Owen S.

john_mcclary

@owen_sparks

philip_thomas

I can see that i have used my powers for evil and not for good. 
Everyone calm down - we are working on a ton of projects that we are hoping will make a lot of people happy!
We now return to regular programming

3dcad

@owen_sparks
We need to setup an annual meeting for 'Pro's against drawings' - then we march back and forth in front of Onshape offices with flags!!
Maybe they offer us a cup of coffee since they only need two..

owen_sparks

3dcad said:

@owen_sparks
We need to setup an annual meeting for 'Pro's against drawings' - then we march back and forth in front of Onshape offices with flags!!
Maybe they offer us a cup of coffee since they only need two..

Sounds like a plan to me   For the sake of balance we could invite the "bring back carbon paper" society and invite them to a game of [insert game of choice here]...

john_mcclary

I stumbled on this by trying to select multiple tabs with shift.

If you hold shift while left clicking a tab, it will open in a new window, rather than right mouse button clicking and selecting open in new browser window

I looked it up, and looks like it was added a while ago but never heard much about it
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/1738/add-open-in-new-browser-tab-window-to-document-tab-rmb-menu

Tony_C_

Just noticed something that can be used as a little trick.  

When using the RMB "Add comment" tool the view is also saved with that comment. You can then click the comment bubble and then the hyper-link for a comment and the view goes back to where it was when the comment was made.  

philip_thomas

All Pro users are all welcome to come and march up and down outside the office - we will try to offer all of you coffee, but there are a LOT of Pro users.
There are 100 of us here at HQ and our coffee machine pumps out 3000 cups of Java a month. That's 3000/100/20 = 1.5 cups per person per day.

john_mcclary

When did this get added? or has it been here the whole time?

I always like to sort my assembly tree, but onshape make it difficult because you can only drag/drop one part at a time

As I was clicking I spotted this little gem.


Basically you select all the parts you want, then copy them to clipboard.
Then de-select everything and right click the part you want it to be below.
all of the selected instances will then be grouped up where you moved them, and all the mates stay together un-harmed
made a short video incase that didn't make sense.
https://youtu.be/l_3DZbDcBr0

It's kind of a weird approach to just selecting your parts and dragging the first instance (like solidworks) but at least there is a tool available.