Feature Scripts and Safe Document Use and Practical Use Practices

julian_julian372 · April 21

I have some Questions about best "safe" "reliable" use case for public Feature Scripts.

Onshape has the function for users to build custom features and scripts.

Onshape documents can be public for everyone to access and private locked.

Seems the best way to find public feature scripts is via the

1) forum.

2) searching public documents that have the most copies or reference links.

When adding a a feature script to your toolbar, pressing the {+} Add to tool bar for the feature script.

- it only references the document that the feature script is from.

- if that document is updated by the author. You can then update your tool bar feature script right click, update feature. or continue to use any of the previous versions.

- if the author of that document decides to set the document to private or delete.... game over man.

- There is a high probability you are adding a 'copy' of the feature script by a 3rd party and is not the original authors.

If you copy the document, That feature script becomes yours with no reference to the original document it was copied from.

- You have some peace of mind knowing the document wont be lost or deleted.

- You miss out on updates the original author may contribute.

- You are contributing to the feature script copy hell since 2018

Another way to keep the feature scripts you use 'safe' is to copy them into a local text document for later use if the day were to every come.

Relying on linked features scripts seems 'high risk'. For use in documents. Not much has changed since 2018 so use with caution.

I suspect a lot of 'free' and 'subscribed' users are using a lot of public feature scripts.

If what i say above is true. I look forward to a future where onshape has a clean repository like github layout

- Where it is clear of what documents are source originals and the tree history back to original authors.

- Onshape sponsored features scripts database listing.

- Where feature scripts are easily searchable.

- Based on most used in document / like / recently updated. etc.

I don't see any changes happening any time soon. But if what I say is true. I have some peace of mind understanding the system better.

references related links

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/8051/how-do-we-find-useful-feature-scripts

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/8790/onshape-copy-hell-for-documents-and-featurescript

_anton · April 21

A while back, we introduced functionality to "publish" custom features: https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/100678

S1mon · April 22

When you add a FS to your toolbar, you are always doing it at a particular version. It's theoretically possible to have someone change a FS in a future version in a way that breaks things, but you don't have to always update. FS is prevented from doing anything particularly malicious. It can't add/delete documents, it can't import/export data so there's really not much it can do other than something dumb to your part studio. Even if a FS deletes all the parts in a part studio, it's just a feature. You delete the feature, and everything is back to where it was.

I'm not aware of any security issues with FS. I see plenty of stupidity with discovery. Even adding "publish" hasn't made it easy to discover good feature scripts. Really the only thing I know is to dig through the forums.

Copies of public documents should be very very low on the search results. Instead, they litter the results and confuse things.
Onshape really needs to curate lists of good custom features - or at least do a better job to get all the useful ones published.
Published FS need to be easy to find from the add custom feature button, not in a buried advanced search setting.
There needs to be an easy way to store and share lists of feature scripts.

julian_julian372 · April 22

I was more concerned about using a feature script that the author has made and for any possible reason that feature script is removed for the public realm at a future date.
some possible reasons could include.

feature scripts authors account is delete.
document changed from public to private.
document featuring the featurescript is deleted by the author.

and then your document that depends on that feature script becomes broken.

NeilCooke · April 22

julian_julian372 said:

and then your document that depends on that feature script becomes broken.

Documents using public features will never break. If a feature becomes unavailable, it is copied locally to the document where it is used, but it is no longer available for new features. Unfortunately, you can't access the code when this happens.

ilya_baran · April 22

Neil is correct about the behavior (that your document won't break), but not the mechanism. The feature is not copied, but rather the referenced document is specially marked so that it'll always allow your document to access it, and deleting it will permanently hide it, not actually remove it.

MichaelPascoe · April 23

I wish Onshape were in charge of Windows updates

Then Windows would be stable again

Feature Scripts and Safe Document Use and Practical Use Practices

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