Improvements To Onshape - April 13th, 2018

bradley_sauln

EDIT: The Sheet Flyout improvement has temporarily been disabled due to performance issues.

This week not only has the arrival of warm weather in the Northeast but also, another Onshape update. Check out all the awesome new features that were added with this most recent update!  Let's dig in!

EDITING LINKED DOCUMENTS IN-CONTEXT

Onshape Assemblies now support the ability to edit and create  in-context geometry across linked documents. When returning to your top-level assembly from another document, Onshape gives you the option to automatically version the linked document and update the parent document to reflect those changes.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/ufu2ztc6u1?wvideo=ufu2ztc6u1

CONFIGURE SKETCH TEXT

With this update, we've added the ability to configure sketch text.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/w26q4beyyd?wvideo=w26q4beyyd

SHEET FLYOUT PANEL AND TAB

EDIT: This has temporarily been disabled due to performance issues.

In Drawings, we've redesigned the sheets flyout panel behavior to give you a better overview of the contents of views and their references. You can find the icon to open flyout panel on the left side of the screen, similar to our configuration, simultaneous BOM, and sheet metal panels. This change gives us a better foundation for future work.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/t9spxz1zsm?wvideo=t9spxz1zsm

ADJUSTING CONFIGURATION NAME COLUMN WIDTH

In the configuration panel you will now be able to adjust the width of the Name column to remove extra whitespace in your tables. This keeps the panel size to a minimum.

RELEASE MANAGEMENT FOR USERS THAT BELONG TO MULTIPLE COMPANIES

If you're part of multiple Onshape companies you will now find that a document's release management workflow will adhere to the release settings of the company that owns the document.

Please take a moment to try out these new features and improvements and leave your comments below. For a detailed list of all the changes in this update, please see the Onshape Changelog.

Remember: The updates listed here are now live for all users when creating new Documents and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.

Do you have a great idea for a new feature or improvement in Onshape? Please post your ideas in the Onshape Forums or vote on existing feature requests to help us prioritize development.

Andrew_Enslow_3DS

Thanks!

Bill_Martin

Sorry, missed the mark this time.  Lame.

kevin_elliott

I'll get lots of use out of the in-context editing of linked docs, that I can guarantee!

owen_sparks

Liking the configurable text, thanks folks.
O.S.

brucebartlett

Nice Thanks!

Cache_River_Mill

Thank you Onshape team! Keep up the innovative work!

shrekant

great

viru

Thank you Onshape team

Tony_C_

So with the option #2 in the eidt in context linked doc command it does NOT create a new version of the linked doc and just stores the newly created "version" of the part in the linking it?

malay_kumar

Tony_C_ said:

So with the option #2 in the eidt in context linked doc command it does NOT create a new version of the linked doc and just stores the newly created "version" of the part in the linking it?

With option #2 'Go to assembly' no version is created at all. It is a simple switch back to assembly command where you came from. It could be useful if one realized that assembly is not in correct position or state and decided to not make complete edits as yet.

3dcad

Nice, can't wait to get back to work after weekend

Thanks!

larry_hawes

I have a curiosity question. Is there an assumption within the OS development team that a 40 second video on a complex new drawing/assembly feature is enough to get users up to speed on the feature? Or will there be further instruction on how to implement the new features for those of us who already find the versioning/branching/linking/in context paradigm extremely difficult to understand?

Jason_S

@larry_hawes here we quicky have an overview of what we added.

Have you checked out the Learning center? 
We provide a lot of material to help out users there. https://learn.onshape.com

We also have help documentation. https://cad.onshape.com/help/

If you have any questions, our forum is a very friendly and helpful place to post questions. You will probably get a GIF or a document showing your answer within a couple hours. 
 

  

philip_thomas

@larry_hawes - To add to Jason's excellent answer, whilst we hope that the help documentation, learning center and forums will usually already have the answer available for you, it's nice to know that as a pro user, you have the ability to open a support ticket directly to let us know that you need help.

3dcad

As a user who have sent in some support tickets I have been experiencing extremely fast response. And if you share the documents with support they will come right there with you to solve any problems. This is something I haven't ever seen before with any software support.

3dcad

larry_hawes said:

.. Or will there be further instruction on how to implement the new features for those of us who already find the versioning/branching/linking/in context paradigm extremely difficult to understand?

I agree that it can be difficult to come up with standard workflows to efficiently use Onshape features. I'm still a bit confused when to divide projects into multiple documents etc. and I've used Onshape for work over 3 years now.

I too would like to examine longer videos of complete projects where Onshape explains the workflow considering standard parts (subassemblies), configurations, in context stuff, performance, drawings, BOMs, sharing, addins like render / FEA etc.. you know the whole thing that we deal everyday.
It's so easy to create & edit something that doesn't belong to anything.

But first things first, assembly configurations, please  

bradley_sauln

@3dcad & @larry_hawes have you had a chance to take a look through the technical briefings like this one? Or this one around versioning/branching?
If so, let us know what other information you would like to have available to you to understand how to take full advantage of the versioning/branching/linking/in context. 

A video walking through a project is a good suggestion @3dcad.

larry_hawes

Thank you for all the help,

I personally have been pouring over every video and tutorial I can find. I am getting a better understanding of  versioning and branching but in context has me stumped for now. I am self teaching with very simple parts and assemblies and just when I think I understand, an issue arises and I'm back to google and videos for an hour to try and understand where I went wrong. I currently have an in context part that finds itself off the origin so I can't mirror efficiently and I don't intend to make this thread about that particular problem but it's that kind of issue that I'm currently in to for over an hour trying to find a reference or solution before posting here asking for help - again.

The help here is second to none but the depth of understanding that the helping individuals have sometimes works against newer users as there are so many skills that are assumed to be possessed by those in need of help that it becomes very much like a foreign language. Learning that new language takes time and I am learning there are no short cuts.

owen_sparks

I for one would not be the least bit offended if someone asked for help after struggling with a problem for 10 minutes, let alone for an hour 
Owen S.

Jake_Rosenfeld

Hi @larry_hawes

For your specific problem, if sounds like the Plane feature may help you set up a mirror plane where you need it:
https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/cplane.htm

Since you are a pro customer, you have access to our in-context learning center course:
https://learn.onshape.com/courses/managed-in-context-design

This may help solidify your understanding of our approach to in-context design.

bill_daniels

SHEET FLYOUT PANEL AND TAB

Is there a way to prevent the automatic "flyout"?  The tab is useful but dealing with an open flyout every time a drawing is opened is not.

emagdalenaC2i

En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_p25-sVoDY

bradley_sauln

bill_daniels said:

SHEET FLYOUT PANEL AND TAB

Is there a way to prevent the automatic "flyout"?  The tab is useful but dealing with an open flyout every time a drawing is opened is not.

@bill_daniels Have you had the chance to experiment with this yet? The flyout will only automatically open on the first load of your document session. If you switch back and forth between tabs in that Document, the flyout will not automatically re-open each time. Once you leave the document and come back though, it will open the first time you visit the drawing again.

Keep in mind, the hotkey Ctrl-S can be used to quickly toggle this flyout open and closed.

pmd

I too find this behaviour (flyout on every open doc) annoying - I normally want to just view the drawing most of the time so having to hide the flyout much more often than show it is the wrong default IMHO

bill_daniels

Bradley, 

It's true if I return to a drawing I have visited before in the current session, there's no flyout.  But, if I move to a new drawing or if I close the session and return to the same drawing upon re-opening, it does flyout.  I think most would prefer that it never flyout unless the tab is clicked.

jakeramsley

My team has discovered a serious performance issue with the new Sheets Flyout improvement and we have decided it is best to disable this improvement until the performance issues are fixed.  We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused with drawing performance recently and we aim to not let it happen again.  Brad has updated the forum post to indicate this and we will update this page when the performance issues have been fixed and the new functionality has been re-enabled.

3dcad

Well this is new from Onshape.

Ok, let's think - with trad.cad we would either install old version back and search backups for files that work with old version and figure out what changes we lost or wait 1-6 months for hotfix or service pack and cope with broken feature until then.

Now we lost part of new functionality to avoid issues but got old functionality back. So we have still have better cad than 'old version', all documents are working and no work got lost. And we didn't need to do anything.

You still have my trust Onshape team, thanks for being honest and acting when issues appeared. 

owen_sparks

Very well handled, no complaints here.

Owen S.

john_mcclary

I was kinda hoping for a surprise update for star wars day... Maybe the white backdrop in assemblies and part studios would look like a star field or something