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Feature Script library is a mess

brett_suttonbrett_sutton Member Posts: 42 ✭✭✭
So I just went looking for a feature script that I had read about (Pocket Holes).

So I did a search for pocket hole and came up with more than 20 results.

There is no way to identify the script by the original author, not to work out which might be the definitive edition.

I've had this problem before and to be honest it makes feature script close to useless as its almost impossible to find the 'working' version of a script.

There are couple of things that need to be done to 1) improve the current situation 2) fix the problem permanantly.

1) add the following to search
Display the author name of the script.
Display the no. of Documents using the script
Display the date the script was last updated.

It would also be a good idea to make the author name searchable.

2) The real fix here is to support the 'forking' and 'pull request' features that github utilise.

With github its always easy to determine what is the definitive version of a project. Even if there are competing versions its pretty clear what the major versions do and how active they are.

The forking and pull request idea also fixes your current problem with public documents. Again we are seeing dozens (hundreds) of copies of a document with no way to see which is the definitive edition.

Pull/forking also allows the whole community to collectively improve a feature script which will benefit everyone.

Feature script and public documents are both powerful featues of onshape but unless you fix the core problem of 'copy hell' they well be only marginally useful.

Comments

  • NeilCookeNeilCooke Moderator, Onshape Employees Posts: 5,310
    I do agree with you on “copy hell” and search by author. Please put in an improvement request. 

    For featurescript, when you add a custom feature to your toolbar, use the featurescript samples filter to find the original. 
    Senior Director, Technical Services, EMEAI
  • Jake_RosenfeldJake_Rosenfeld Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers Posts: 1,646
    This is also a useful page for finding Custom Features:
    https://www.onshape.com/featurescript

    Pocket Holes is listed in the "more" section of the Feature Highlight, so you can just follow the link to the original document and add it directly.


    Jake Rosenfeld - Modeling Team
  • RyanAveryRyanAvery Member Posts: 93 EDU
    I agree, it is impossible in its current state. It would be much better if you let us query a read-only database to find feature scripts. 
  • sjalifesjalife Member, Developers Posts: 24 PRO
    I can't UP VOTE this enough.

    Let me know when the feature request is added and the link to go and upvote that too...
  • MBartlett21MBartlett21 Member, OS Professional, Developers Posts: 2,034 EDU
    mb - draftsman - also FS author: View FeatureScripts
    IR for AS/NZS 1100
  • lemon1324lemon1324 Member, Developers Posts: 223 EDU
    There's two IRs on the fork/pull workflow, here and here.

    There's also this one on improved sorting for public document search.

    I can understand public document search being primarily of interest to non-enterprise users, but surely a fork/pull request workflow would be useful for everybody.
    Arul Suresh
    PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
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