Best workflows - Part studios to Assemblys

billy2

I've got firefox working:



Also added:
-read window size and fill with icons
-window resize event handler 

link to document viewer:
https://rndengineering.com/os/

billy2

Changes:
-need rights to write to documents
-show all elements in a document
-RMB edits parts properties in a part studio
-added border around assemblies to differentiate between studios

https://rndengineering.com/os/
video document loader


I've added all elements when viewing a document: assy's, studios, drawings, api, feature scripts, images. Everything in a document should display:


I've also added a border around assy's vs. studios so you can tell them apart.


Left mouse clicking on icon opens that element in a new browser window.
Right mouse clicking on icon retrieves the parts & properties for studios.

RMB retrieves parts & properties:


Properties have place holders telling you what that input is when there is no value or the value is null. Above the darker 'revision' is a placeholder telling you what that input value should be. The other inputs are a lighter gray meaning they've been assigned values. This is standard HTML5. It's clean and I don't have to label each input. But, it may be confusing.


The green backgrounds mean these values have been changed. An onchange event handler updates the values on change for each input. There is no 'save' for your changes.

Background colors:
red-data sent to OS (wait for response from OS)
yellow-OS doesn't match input value (usually an error)
green-OS matches input value (a good thing)

billy2

After spending a month in the API looking up part studios & assemblies, I'd like to take a stab at answering the original post

"BEST WORKFLOWS - PART STUDIOS TO ASSEMBLYS"

Parts studios & assemblies are the same thing in that they both have parts in them. I think the best way to think about Onshape is to consider parts and not part studios or assemblies.

•It's true that parts can only be created in part studios
•Assemblies manage part studios
•Assemblies allow free motion between parts

So:
•You always start off in a part studio.
•Part studios probably consist of 20 parts or less
•Part studios have references easily created between parts
•Assemblies contain part studios
•Assemblies allow free motion of parts in part studios
•Assemblies do nothing to the parts inside the part studio on import (I think this is wrong)
•Assemblies can have references between part studios (in-context referencing)

As a summary:
If you're designing something with 20 parts or less, do it in a part studio. If it has to move, put it in an assembly. As your design increases in size & complexity, start using assemblies to manage part studios.

From a programming side:
Tracking parts is the name of the game. Part studio data structures are different than assembly data structures and we'll have to create programs that deal with the different structures. 

billy2

Here's a pleasant surprise: yesterday I went into the lab and left my laptop open and "on". When I returned a few hours later, I was still logged in.

My APP was refreshing it's token every 59 minutes and staying alive. Look at the timestamps below, every 59 minutes:


So what does this mean? Onshape uses a web socket when editing a part which is a pipeline directly coupled to a server. This will always log off due to inactivity. When this happens, I just close the tab.


Since my APP is still logged in, I click the icon to establish a new socket connection to my part.


APP's don't use sockets to communicate with servers. They use rest calls which is a fluttering of requests to a server. After 60 minutes, the server stops talking to the APP and makes the APP re-register. Refreshing is a method for an APP to keep the connection alive. 

To me it's faster to pick up where I left off using my APP and clicking on the images to open the exact tabs I want to work in:


If you want to try this APP in a browser tab, click on the link below:
https://rndengineering.com/os

oleg_shilovitsky

brucebartlett said:

When it come to BOM's I want to be able to interface live with my BOM and Assembly from the 1 window. If I have my BOM open and select a part it should highlight in the BOM list and vice visa. Like the sheet metal flat pattern view table. The BOM should just alway be there no messing about updating properties each way.

See this mocked up example of how I want it to work.


At the moment I find it so hard to chase properties back to a part studio and into a BOM. I use a naming system on the part name to try help but don't really like doing this.

@brucebartlett
 We have some good news. We started to work on making BOM and Assembly to be synchronize live and seamless. You clearly helped with making this decision. Thank you!

brucebartlett

Great news @oleg_shilovitsky, looking forward to this. I love anything that makes my meta data easier to manage.