We use C++11 in TechDraw, but that wasn’t standard in 0.16.
I disagree with the notion that it’s better to fork 0.16 than to use 0.17. Some of the biggest issues that people are likely to run in to with 0.16 (eg topological naming) are still there in 0.17, and lots of big improvements have been made in 0.17. We’re already constrained by development time, it seems less than ideal to put more effort in to what’s effectively an obsolete codebase.
If you’re worried about file format changes due to a moving code base, why not have your team standardise on a particular commit? -Ian-
Are there any plans to release 0.17? That would solve the problem of 0.16 vs 0.17_pre and an interest from a commercial partner is probably worth to do something special.
Part Design NEXT of 0.17 is not ready for a release.
Part Design NEXT may change (i.e. is not stable).
I have learned lately that companies with medium/big projects emphasize a lot estability and upgrade procedures (Airbus crashing against using different Catia versions, or Boeing forcing every supplier to use the same version of Catia and upgrading 4 times per year, everybody at the same time, including suppliers in the Dreamliner project).
I do not have the experience of a medium size project. So that is a point that people that we have onboard and have such a experience should better talk about, not me. For me PD NEXT will be release ready when those experienced active members that do a living from making CAD say it is ready. So in other words, I do not think it makes sense to release before there is such a situation. On the other hand, I think we should have a clear idea of what does PD NEXT exactly needs to be there and put in some community effort.
I think I will be working in PD NEXT soon (I want to push exception improvements thru first, as I think it can contribute to accelerate the test-bug-fix cycle). On the other hand, I think that if we release 0.18 without 0.17, this should be something exceptional as it will discourage commercial partners willing to jump onboard. I think we have to deal with the situation we have and do the best for the project.
I think there are a lot of things to “tune” and even fix in PD NEXT. If the question is whether somebody can survive in a small project using PD NEXT 0.17, then I think so, but they must be freely willing to take such risk.
I have used PD NEXT in small projects. I always was able to produce the result I wanted. Some times it involved the use of Part tools to finish the job (PDNEXT without all the fillets because some would just not be doable, part-refine, finishing the fillets). One thing however is true to the advantage of 0.17 PDNEXT. If you have to rework a part AND you use a robust designing methodology (Normand-DeepSOIC) v.0.17 can give you an unwarranted advantage that in 0.16 you can only dream-off. In my 0.16 designs a change up in the line was generally having catastrophic effects mostly due to external geometry. Invalid sketches everywhere that I would have to run the validation tool on. That would “move” when removing all constraints to external geometry. 0.17 did not improve the external geometry problem, however now I can work without external geometry (planes positioned with the expression engine, sketches linked via expressions, maybe using carbon copy as an assistance tool), so appropriately designing with 0.17 has its advantages too…
I use in my working cycle FC0.17 which has a lot of advantages in speed and OCC features compared to FC0.16…
as a working rule I don’t touch PDN in general because of its not complete definition/stability…
Small issues in FC0.17 are fixed normally in very little time…
I need a lot STEP importing/exporting, Assembly2 and SheetMetal WB and these features are available and reliable in FC0.17
Moreover STEP importing and manipulating has been improved a lot recently; those improvements are positioning FC in STEP manipulation very near to commercial $$$ CADs and in some case also even ahead… (I’m going to make a post recap on new features/performances available)
Also Assembly2 has been improved (in part also by me) and is going to be boosted with new and interesting features like “Links”
I’m with @ian.rees with this:
As @abdullah pointed out this will need at least a person that would be active on the forum (but this would be needed also for commercial CADs) and with some at least python knowledge… but it will lead the company into a stronger position IMO
Agreed, if PDN is the main blocker to 0.17 being released, then it’s probably a good idea to have a set of criteria for PDN to meet before it’s considered ready to release.
Then, ideally, after the summer and GSoC has ended, we can take a look at what has been satisfied or not and hopefully begin with a beta/feature freeze in early fall.
Look in the Python console what happens when you insert a drawing page and what happens when you change EditableTexts property of a page. It would therefore likely be easy to combine this in a pre-set macro and for macro to be added as a button to toolbar. That is once button is pressed page gets inserted and text is set accordingly. With a bit of extra code date could be set as a current date…
But there is one oppressing issue. We managed to break everything there is to break when it comes to drawing templates support in FreeCAD 0.16. Once you go beyond 1 drawing template of the same type in a document and start using templates that are not provided by default issues will occur. Especially when working in a team environment.
Dimensions
Wish: Dimensions are recomputed along with adaptations in Parts or Assembly.
Comment: This is possible in FC17. Not in FC16 (manual redrawing of dimensions is needed in FC16).
Actually in FreeCAD 0.16 updates are possible you just need to press on the recompute button in Drawing Dimensioning workbench.
Preparing Assemblies
Assembly 2 with its capabilities and limitations is what we have ATM. Any direct contribution that improves things is therefore welcomed.
Production management
As a starting point there is a command available that does something like this:
But it was rewritten for FreeCAD 0.17. FreeCAD 0.17 has better drawing support (drawing template fixes for Drawing workbench and the future TechDraw workbench). But what FreeCAD 0.17 doesn’t have in my opinion is stable PartDesign workbench. And i personally wouldn’t introduce FreeCAD 0.17 in a team environment before FreeCAD 0.17 is released. Unless the team would be made by FreeCAD experts having a few years of experience in FreeCAD.
P.S. As there are enough troubles when dealing with things like drawing templates, not having robust assembly solver and some team members enabling automatic refinement in Preferences and other not doing that.
Look in the Python console what happens when you insert a drawing page and what happens when you change EditableTexts property of a page. It would therefore likely be easy to combine this in a pre-set macro and for macro to be added as a button to toolbar. That is once button is pressed page gets inserted and text is set accordingly. With a bit of extra code date could be set as a current date…
Indeed, I saw that happen. Good suggestion.
Recalculation of Dimensions:
Actually in FreeCAD 0.16 updates are possible you just need to press on the recompute button in Drawing Dimensioning workbench.
I do not see such button in FC16. Only in FC17-pre. When entering dimensions, I see nothing happen in the Python console. So do not know how to address this.
Production management: Thanks for suggestion to look under Arch WB for options.
There is no Recompute button when I install the Drawing Dimensioning WB (using the addons_installer macro). However, I could find it under Customize toolbar, and inserted that button. So it is there now. However, it does not recompute after I change parameters of the part.
OOPS, Yes it does now. I redrew some dimensions, and those were sensitive to Recompute. But only those drawn with the reinstall of the Drawing Dimensioning WB. Perhaps it is a matter of versions of the Drawing Dimensioning WB.
The versions matter seems an issue. This reinstall of the Drawing Dimensioning WB seems not compatible with the dimensions that I drew earlier. E.g. I cannot delete earlier drawn dimensions with the toolbar’s Delete button. How about backward compatibility? Or is this for another thread?
Do you know which python command it should initiate (although the python console does not show any activity when drawing dimensions). And could I run that separately to see if the commands do something at all?
One of the last things added was parametric support for dimensions. I know this change removed DraftDrawing support (adding dimensions). As for other incompatibility introduced and what version does addons_installer macro provide i don’t know. I use git clone and git pull procedure to install FreeCAD modules for now.
