Rollback bar thoughts

3dcad

What do you guys think of part studio rollback bar affecting to corresponding assembly and drawing?

I just edited some part, forgot the rollback bar so that small fillets in the end were not applied. Then made drawing out of that part.
Later on I noticed my rollback bar was not in the end and moved it there, this caused a change in my drawing dimensions since fillets were applied and dimension was length of line between fillets rather than size of part. With small fillets this is not so easy to spot.

Same thing has happened to me few times breaking assembly since corners where I had mate connectors attached disappeared with fillets.

In my opinion rollback bar is not something to control what features are 'released' into assembly / drawings. Whole model should be shown even though rollback bar is left in the middle and changes apply when they are applied. If you wan't to leave something out, suppress is the feature for that.
I know this can cause some issues in shared project if multiple edits are made so that they interfere with each other, but that should be addressed in other ways.

State of rollback bar is also 'saved' with version, so if you accidentally leave some features below rollback bar and create version - features below bar are not applied and if you update that version to assembly that might easily break things or cause 'Where did that hole disappear?' situations.

Would YOU like to:

1. Change the way rollback bar works to allow all parts showing in assemblies and different users having bar in different positions.
or
2. Have a hotkey + a button 'Roll to end' + warning when leaving a tab or creating a version if rollback bar is not at the very bottom of the list.

I didn't create improvement request for this yet because I wan't to see if current behavior makes sense to others / is useful to others.

Any thoughts??

MBartlett21

+1 for 1.

Please make an improvement request.

I'll vote!

It also should allow different users to have the rollback bar in different positions.
Currently, this is only available with a view-only user.

owen_sparks

Hmm, interesting.

Must admit I've used the roll back bar in place of a branch when the design has changed and have added new features and left unwanted stuff below the roll back.  This is just lazy though, and isn't an onshape problem.

I can't see a clean answer.

Perhaps we could propose that the position of the roll back bar is remembered for for the active workspace but automatically sent to the end upon setting a revision, or we could have a nag screen if you try to set a revision with the roll back not at the end?

O.S.

MBartlett21

@owen_sparks
Great Idea

3dcad

I'll change the original post a bit, please review.

3dcad

@owen_sparks
I suppose in your use case it would be pretty easy to select bunch of features and hit suppress..? 

3dcad

I also think that in small hi-resolution monitors (today's laptops) rollback bar is so thin that it's not that convenient to drag.
I would like to use page up/down keys to move the bar when looking for certain state of design. End key could be 'roll to end'.

I'm sure customizable hotkeys are on their way so the important thing here would be to have those functions on the list to add hotkeys.

michał_1

page up/down is a perfect idea, rollback bar have some acceleration (further you go, faster it scrolls) with makes moving it not enough precise. I have this weird effect of having initially a little lag and then a jump of a few features at once.

MBartlett21

+1 for option 1

paul_chastell

@owen_sparks. Good news. I believe we already do the nagging you want for the rollback bar, its one of the things that a company admin can enforce, as well as not releasing parts/assemblies with errors or drawings that need an update: https://cad.onshape.com/help/#release_setup.htm

owen_sparks

paul_chastell said:

@owen_sparks. Good news. I believe we already do the nagging you want for the rollback bar, its one of the things that a company admin can enforce, as well as not releasing parts/assemblies with errors or drawings that need an update: https://cad.onshape.com/help/#release_setup.htm

@paul_chastell that's outstanding and you are of course correct.

Administrators can define the conditions that, when true, will prohibit a Release candidate from being created. You can select more than one:

• When releasing a part if its Part Studio Feature list contains errors - Select this to prohibit the release of a part if the Part Studio Feature list has any errors.
• When releasing a part if its Part Studio Feature list rollback bar is not at the end (of the Feature list) - Select this to prevent the release of any part with the rollback bar not at the end of the Feature list. Best practice is to delete any unwanted or unused Features from the Feature list and keep the rollback bar at the end of the Feature list to avoid confusion in the future.
• When releasing an Assembly if its Assembly tree contains errors - Select this to prevent the release of any Assembly if the Assembly list contains errors.
• When releasing a drawing if it has a pending Update - Select this to prevent the release of any Drawing if the drawing is pending Update.

I winge when users don't RTFM and now I've gone ahead and done it too.

Thanks for putting me straight.

@3dcad, yes indeed, suppress is an option but it's a bit like the "show all parts option", if you already had some hidden / suppressed it's then all or nothing, so unsuppress turns everything back on.  But ignore that for the sake of this roll back topic.

Cheers,

Owen S.

3dcad

Good information - I haven't really dived into Admin side, it seems that I should. So you can blame your boss if rollback bar is left behind and it let's you release stuff into production 

Let's still have the conversation about local single doc stuff, are you happy with rollback bar messing with your assemblies / drawings?

paul_chastell

Yes, by all means please continue the larger conversation about the rollback bar. We're watching and interested...

robert_morris

Here are some of my thoughts.

PLEASE don't make it like it is in Solidworks where you can't interact with an assembly if a part is rolled back. That is incredibly annoying.

I like the fact that I can close out of the workspace with the part studio rolled back. There has been a few times editing a part where I knew there would be a bunch of errors and I didn't have time in the day to fix them all, so I've left it rolled back until the next day.

+1 to the PgUp/PgDn (or other hotkey) idea for incremental rolling.

I like the idea of a rollback warning when creating a version, but I don't think it needs to be mandatory requirement that it is rolled to the end (except when creating a Release).

3dcad

@robert_morris You make good point with being able to 'set milestone' for unfinished work - would it be inconvenient to suppress failing features until time for fix?

In general,
Could the behavior of rollback bar be something we choose in account settings?

My problem with current system is that I like to create early assemblies even if all parts are not finished yet, then I put assembly into 2nd monitor and edit parts in other screen - everytime I rollback the bar, my assembly goes crazy since parts disappear.

Alibre changes part icon if corresponding part has rolled back some features, that is good - but with Onshape we need something even better since you can make bunch of parts disappear by draging RBB couple steps backward (did I just come up with new abbreviation for rollback bar?).

robert_morris

3dcad said:

@robert_morris You make good point with being able to 'set milestone' for unfinished work - would it be inconvenient to suppress failing features until time for fix?

The problem that I see with this is that suppressing a feature could then cause other features to fail (are they same features that would fail anyway? I don't know). Also, how do I know those features were suppressed automatically or because I actually wanted them suppressed?

I too have experienced the momentary confusion after seeing my assembly gone crazy with failed mates and missing parts before realizing that a rollback bar was moved.

I like the possibility of some kind of notification or icon change to let me know that something is rolled back, but only if it doesn't get in the way of me working or forcing me to do something about it. There are many times while editing a part that I want or need to see it in the assembly and I don't care if it's rolled back or incomplete.

brucebartlett

There has been many times when the rollback bar has messed with my assemblies and wasted time, especially when collaborating with other users. I think I'd be happy if parts in assemblies and drawings were always rolled to the end if this is possible. I never used the rollback bar to get something into an assembly or drawing with bits missing, it just had not occurred to me to use it this way, I use the feature suppression for this. 

robert_morris

@3dcad

What if when the rollback bar is moved far enough back that it removes a part, then a ghosted view of the part would remain in the assembly. I think that if a part isn't completely rolled back the assembly should still show whatever the current state of part is, but I like the idea of a ghosted representation of the part if it is completely missing.

The part name on the left would also be highlighted and a warning message at the top could let you know that a part was in a rollback state.

3dcad

Would it be ok if we had setting in account level to set: 'parts in assemblies and drawings always rolled to the end'

or should that be document level setting? Is there anyone who want's both depending on document?

What are the actual use cases for striping down assembly or drawing using rollback bar that can't be handled with feature suppress? Or is it just to let collaborator know that part studio is being edited (that is poor way to collaborate).

What are the drawbacks if inserted parts in assembly / drawings were not affected by the rollback bar at all?

@robert_morris
I like the idea of ghost parts (better than current) but it wouldn't add any value in my work and I would prefer simply rbb not affecting to assembly/drawing at all.

robert_morris

I think an account level option would be fine.

The only reason I use the rollback bar is for editing a part, but sometimes I want to see it in the assembly as I am editing it. If I just want a feature turned off or hidden, then I suppress it.

owen_sparks

Hi all.

My concern with ghost parts is that a part just "being there or not" is just part of the story. 

Features will remove parts, split big parts into many little parts, or just change them in small hard to notice ways as per @3dcad 's original issue. 

So you could have parts that are 100% identical irrespective of roll bar position shown solid, but what to do with the rest makes my head hurt. Even then you might have set the alpha in a part to make it transparent, so now we've made it solid again.

It's a personal opinion but this would fall into my existing "The OS UI is way too polite" catagory. I'd prefer less sleek grey and white screen, and apologetic light blue "hint like" error banners, and more big red in your face shouty things.

Just of the top of my head perhaps shade the entire feature tree background light orange if the roll bar is not at the end?

Owen S.

owen_sparks

Also the whole all or nothing hide/suppress debate would go away with feature tree folders or groups. 

We have selective suppression already, just use configurations...  But they're too slow to manage, by which I mean adding and removing features to a config.  They're awesome for final design work, and a credit to OS, but there is scope to make them better in the initial design phase.

I'd love to have the option to suppress the contents of a feature tree folder, that way it's quick drag n drop, and multiple folders allow just a handful of configurations to have a huge impact on the doc.

OS

3dcad

@owen_sparks
+1 for feature tee folders that already have quite many votes on IR thread..

Owen which one would you prefer, having annoying info if rbb is not at the bottom or just not affect to asm/drw at all (no changes to rbb behavior inside part studios)?

owen_sparks

Hi @3dcad.

I would be against the roll back bar being ignored for assemblies.  I feel it would be confusing to see different things in the part studio and assemblies, so would prefer a warning be displayed in both PS and ASM indicating the RBB is not at the end.

How do you feel?

BTW please award yourself 10 extra nerd points for being on the forum at the weekend 

Owen S.

3dcad

Well, Sunday evening is almost Monday..

I would prefer ignoring rbb completely in asm/drw - I don't see any reason for having that way incomplete / disappearing parts in assembly. If you edit a feature and that causes changes to a part, that part should change in assembly when you apply the change - it shouldn't disappear when you start planning on changes.  And if you just forget rbb somewhere or plan to edit something tomorrow / investigate how things are build, that should have no affect on asm/drw. IMHO.

nick_lumb

I think the RBB should be a tool for examining and editing the part studio it belongs to, not controlling assemblies or drawings.  As has been said above, suppression is the tool for that!