Random observations from a day of using the macOS beta

There is probably a mix of feature requests, bugs, and user error in here but just wanted to share my notes from the beta so far. I can keep adding to the list as I notice things if it’s helpful.

  1. Using the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom doesn’t seem to center on the cursor
  2. model tree only shows one level at a time, makes it difficult to understand the BOM of an assembly. Also, when importing a step assembly the model tree places bodies in a maze of nested folders, not sure what function the folders serve but it would be much easier if the model tree included the bodies only with no folders.
  3. I sketched on the face of a body, but the faces of the sketch wouldn’t highlight when I went to extrude them. The extrude feature worked as expected however.
  4. double click on a face seems to select the whole body rather than rotate the view to be normal to the face
  5. is there a way to delete items out of the feature tree on the sidebar? right clicking on an item in the sidebar to pull up a menu of options would be great.
  6. I imported a step file from a vendor, it would be cool if when you do that different feature types would default to different colors (bodies in grey, planes in blue, that type of thing)
  7. can I edit a sketch I made on a face after I extrude from that sketch? seems like I have to delete the extrude to be able to edit the sketch
  8. sometimes to change an object (example, to move a point on a control spline) I can’t just click and drag it with the mouse- I have to click it to select it then click it again to be able to drag it
  9. when tumbling the part to view a different side, it’s not intuitive when moving the cursor will roll vs yaw the part around
  10. when using full screen, the top bar on the window disappears and thus hides the buttons for things like section, snap-to, and units
  11. it would be helpful if when I click on a body in an assembly to select it, it also became highlighted in the model tree
  12. it would be helpful if I could right click on an object in the viewer (or sidebar) to show/hide, edit transparency, edit color etc
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Great list - thanks for taking the time to write this up. Responded to each point. Which version of the app are you using, some of the bugs you mention I can’t reproduce.

  1. Known issues, we will fix it
  2. We have redesigned the whole Item list, will release it soon. This issue has been addressed.
  3. Bug, we will fix it
  4. This is by design - made a note of your expectations
  5. Will be addressed by redesign - now you have to longtap (iPad behavior)
  6. Good idea - added to our list
  7. You can edit the sketch, but first you have to hide/move the body
  8. by design for now, we are evaluating this click+drag behaviour
  9. can you please show a video of this
  10. works for me on latest beta - will investigate on other devices
  11. That’s how it works now - can you show a video when this doesn’t happen
  12. Added to our list. Hide, Isolate, Transparency are good candidates for sure. We will give it a thought.
  1. when tumbling the part to view a different side, it’s not intuitive when moving the cursor will roll vs yaw the part around

Video attached, but what it seems to be doing is selecting an axis normal to the screen when you shift+right click, then any side-to-side movement of the mouse rotates the object around that axis. That axis also follows the pitch movement of the body, so that rolling movement looks like yaw when the pitch is changed by 90 degrees. I’d have to go back and check normal behavior in other platforms, but I think if you made side-to-side movement of the mouse drive yaw instead of roll this would give more typical behavior. For what it’s worth, it’s not too often that I want to roll the object around my viewing axis, but I would use yaw to look at it from different angles constantly.

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  1. it would be helpful if when I click on a body in an assembly to select it, it also became highlighted in the model tree

Ok I see it highlighting the folder that the object is in now, didn’t notice it before since the object was inside a folder in the tree

new feedback- when you make a section view through an assembly, all bodies show up in the same yellow grid color so it’s impossible to see interferences, or even where one body ends and another body begins. Ideal behavior would be for sectioned faces to show up in the body color (or maybe a highlighted version of the body color), and interferences could be toggled to show up highlighted in red.

@DanielR version 3.59.1 (849), sorry I missed that before

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Also, commands for show all, hide all, and invert shown/hidden would be super helpful when viewing assemblies

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Yes, absolutely. Assemblies in general a rather big topic, and it’s one of our priorities for this year.

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Yes, great suggestions - those are definitely features we should add to section views when we redesign it.

Follow up on #9, the roll/yaw behavior seems inconsistent between designs. I opened a different step file imported from a vendor, and in this session moving the cursor left-to-right causes the model to yaw around the point there I initially shift+clicked the mouse.

On the topic of assemblies, continue to struggle with opening them in both iOS and MacOS versions. In the latter, opened an assembly which has 24 parts. All are in the same directory as the assembly itself. None were picked up - it’s not possible to help the app find the parts manually.

Note that this is running on a cloud directory (Box). Have not tried locally, but should work on both I would hope.

I would really welcome an Isolate feature. I’m working on a design with several objects that fit together in a tight space and being able to isolate/un-isolate a particular object (with the option to add visibility to select objects after isolating) would save me a ton of time.