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Improvements to Onshape - August 1st, 2018
cody_armstrong
Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers, csevp Posts: 215 
It's the first of August and and we are back again with another list of great improvements. These improvements includes new features as well as major performance and usability improvements. Let's get started.
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 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.
CAD IMPROVEMENTS
REORDER MULTIPLE FEATURES
You can now reorder multiple features in the feature list at once. Simply left-click each feature that you want to move and drag them to their new position in the tree. In the past, this was limited to moving one feature at a time.MATE CONNECTOR AS AXIS
You can now select a mate connector as a reference for an axis. This can be particularly useful in commands like transform where you may want to rotate with respect to a mate connector, or a command like circular pattern in situations where these is no easily selectable circular reference. When selecting a mate connector as an axis, the Z axis of the mate connector is used.SHEET METAL PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
Performance improvements are something we are always working on and rarely highlight. But the performance improvements to sheet metal parts in this update are especially noteworthy. In more complex multi-part sheet metal Part Studios, we are seeing significant rebuild time improvements. Below is a simple 15 feature sheet metal Part Studio that saw over a 25% decrease in rebuild time.LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS
Major improvements have been made to the Onshape Learning Center. The most noticeable improvement is the new, more intuitive interface with better search features. This also includes a new learning pathway dashboard that makes it easier to track your progress. New videos have also been added to Onshape Assemblies and Document Management courses. Finally, two new Learning Center courses are being added; Part Configurations and Advanced Configurations.HELP IMPROVEMENTS
Improvements have been made to the Help homepage. These improvements include a new tiled interface that makes it easier to navigate.PROFESSIONAL FEATURES
CHANGE TO REVISION
You can now change existing parts or assemblies to a revision in both the assembly and drawing. This means you can now change to all stages of the workflow, from the active workspace, to a version, and finally to a release.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 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.
7
Comments
Owen S.
HWM-Water Ltd
Great set of updates Onshape team!
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
Small touch but it's really great when you need it, particularly since it's easy to mess up the order when doing it one at a time.
- Sheet Metal Performance Improvement
- Advanced Part Configurations Course
Make my day!
especially - Change to version,Mate connector as axis,Multiple reorder
As always, Onshape is Ontrack. Great update! Like gamer's anticipating the next update, Onshape users only have to wait ~3 weeks (The "Gamification" of CAD era.
@NeilCooke maybe you should add the mobile improvements in the changelog.
And even you could sort all the improvements in:
Eduardo Magdalena C2i Change 2 improve ☑ ¿Por qué no organizamos una reunión online?
Partner de PTC - Onshape Averigua a quién conocemos en común
Eduardo Magdalena C2i Change 2 improve ☑ ¿Por qué no organizamos una reunión online?
Partner de PTC - Onshape Averigua a quién conocemos en común
Only noticed today when I reordered a feature on the tree and saw you improved the rollback bar and drag&drop UX/UI. It is much better now that it is a thin blue line rather than shuffling the features around in a hard to position way. Thanks a ton for that!
Can't wait to put your sheet-metal performance claim to the test
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
REORDER MULTIPLE FEATURES
Love the abillity (finally) to reorder multiple selected features. Like the fact the feature selection does not have to be contigious.MATE CONNECTOR AS AXIS
Nice to see Onshape starting to recognize the need to be able to leverage supplemental geometry (non part/model geometry) to facilitate modeling. But instead of piece meal trying to make a Mate Connector into something it really isn't (a coordinate system) why not add the ability to create fully capable coordinate system entities?Image how useful it would be to have an single entity with 3 othangonal planes, 3 perpendicular axis, and an origin point that could be referenced/leveraged during the design modeling process.
Image how useful it would be to create a coordinate system network that belongs to a Part Studio to faciliate part/feature modeling in the context of a Part Studio.
Image how useful it would be to create a Part where the first feature is a coordinate system making it possible to create named null parts as design place holders.
Image how useful it would be to be able to attach a coordinate system to part geometry and always have it move with the entity(ies) it was associated to.
Leave the functionality of Mate Connector as-is: to faciliate assembly process. Give us true coordinate system entities to facititate geometry creation.
All that sounds great for the future, but all I wanted to do was rotate a square part so I'm already happy 😀
Owen S.
HWM-Water Ltd
Reordering multiple features at once is awesome, now we can avoid things breaking while reordering
Great update!
In addition to Mate Connectors new being usable as an axis, they are also usable in fields that take a direction! Try it out for Direction of Linear Pattern, Translate by distance, or Move face by translation!
The direction that is used is the Z (blue) direction of the mate connector.
What's in a name? That which we call a mate connector
By any other word would provide a coordinate system.
"...instead of piece meal trying to make a Mate Connector into something it really isn't..."
I really appreciate the Onshape's commitment to rolling out incremental improvements every few weeks, but often I am left scratching my head as to how incommplete incremental improvements have been implemented. The Mate Connector As Axis improvement is a prime example.
Why is the axis assumed/limited to just the "Blue" axis; shouldn't the "Red" or "Green" axis be a perfectly logical option? And why can't a Mate Connector be used to establish a sketch, or create a plane? The Mate Connector in its present form is piss poor local coordinate system.
I forgot to include an "Image" reason in my orginal comment.
Image being able to use a coordinate system to establish a frame of reference, different than the Global Coordinate System, such that coordinate locations (XYZ) and projected (DX,DY,DZ) values are returned in a meaninful way.
Confession
I confess I may be carrying forward a bias from my prior MCAD experience with respect to using coordinate system entities, but I do not see it as wanting to do it the "old way". When I first started using OS, I was surprised the only supplemental 3D entity available was a plane; creating a 3D point, or 3D line required creating a 2D sketch. To quote Dark Vader, "I find your lack of [coordinate systems] disturbing.".Fundementally, Coordinate Systems support workflows that begin at a lower conceptual level without the need to create 3D part geometry and allow for radical geometrical changes in parts design with greatly increased model robustness. You do not absolutely need them in OS, but they would be a wonderful addition instead of slowing expanding what can be done with a Mate Connector.
I agree that mate connectors need improvement (to be as useful as a general coordinate system) and we're working on it, but are you saying you'd rather us not have shipped "Mate Connector As Axis" until we've implemented other improvements? I'm not sure what would be gained by that. In any case, the ability to use a mate connector to establish a sketch is coming soon.
Instead of other cads who build up things for a year or two then launch something massive that no one knows how to use. And after few months launch another massive hotfix-service-pack that changes everything you have learned by then. After that they forget about left over bugs since they need to concentrate on another massive package for coming years. User ideas are pain in the *ss since they already know everything so much better than some 2nd class ordinary users who haven't even developed any software and still keep throwing ideas..