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Link vs Copy a Document

john_gentilinjohn_gentilin Member Posts: 15
edited November 2017 in Community Support
I want to include other public documents/parts into my documents where I can modify/revision those parts and keep source author attribution,

It seems I can link a document at any revision and update to a newer revision as they come out, but I can't edit the document unless I copy it.
When I copy it, the document loses all notion of source attribution.  Also if I like a document/part then later want to copy it, it's a different part I need to change in my assemblies.

Can copy work like GIT fork, where I can have a reference to a branch revision, make my own local changes, while maintaining historical changes / authorship and maybe even issuing a pull request to see if the upstream author is interested in the edits. It could possibly reduce all the copies floating around in the public documents section..

Thanks
-John

Best Answers

Answers

  • lanalana Onshape Employees Posts: 703
    You can derive the part you want to modify. Derive feature can use parts from versions of linked documents. I think that would give you the functionality you want; you'll be able to update derived feature to the new versions of the source document and you can make changes to the derived part in your own part studio. i have to warn you agains long derivation chains though ( Part Studio C derived from Part Studio B, derived from Part Studio A) - they kill performance. Think of derived feature as whole base part studio regenerating in context of the deriving one.
  • john_gentilinjohn_gentilin Member Posts: 15
    @robert_morris , Thank you for the response. You description is what I was looking for although my initial concern came after I started copying other users parts, stepper, servo motors, etc.  Then realizing that with a copy command, all notion of original ownership was lost, the details indicates that I am the creator of the part. 

    Do you know if User A grants me (User B) edit access to their part, or if I link to their part, if User A deletes a part is it removed from my documents as well ?


  • john_gentilinjohn_gentilin Member Posts: 15
    @lana

    Thank you for the pointer on Derived parts. If I understand you, what I did was create a new Document, then added a derived part/document as the only part in that document then I should be able to edit that part.  What is interesting is the part links via the Derive Part function but you can't really edit. I can see the total assembled part and the individual parts and I can kind of see the sketches but the sketch and operation detail is hidden, only new operations are visible.  See here I derived a servo motor, then added a mate connector which worked fine, but I can't really modify and of the drawing components.  Also the Derive Document has the same initial issue in that the source authorship is hidden, although I can open the linked document.

    https://cad.onshape.com/documents/63f72c9d19b85fb2e0aa2e94/w/ef674a3c221e497a089ee708/e/5e2b1a3e4c0dd997c083a85e
  • mahirmahir Member, Developers Posts: 1,303 ✭✭✭✭✭
    @robert_morris, I believe you can indeed merge forks. However, you can't merge changes made to a derived part in a separate part studio. You would have to be working on a forks within the same part studio in. @lana, please confirm?
  • john_gentilinjohn_gentilin Member Posts: 15
    You can merge forks of a part you own or have edit rights to. If you like to a part that you don't have edit rights to, you can only view that part, to modify it, you need to make a copy of it first, If you make a copy you can edit any element of the part. If you derive a part then you can only make additive / subtractive edits, you can modify any of the original elements, sketches, planes, extrudes, etc.
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