[Ticket #4614] Request for a separate Assy file format

[dan-miel]

I think this isnt about being malicious, but its about project management.

I believe it is all about project management.

If your tool environment demands different file extensions for parts and assemblies, you could simply coin your own. Just name all of your parts "something.part.fcad" and your assemblies "something.assy.fcad".

FreeCAD is ok for a small project and if you are not concerned about revision control but when a project is larger or under revision control then PDM which is just a database and usually stores file names, materials, colors, finish types, designers names, manages file locations, revisions, supporting documentation and anything else connected with a project then PDM becomes necessary.
IMHO
Having a separate file name and being able to write properties from PDM to the file would be nice.
Also I believe this affects A2Plus not Assm3 or Assm4.

[adrianinsaval]

different filename can be enforced at the organization level, no need for FreeCAD to limit other people that don't need this.

Also I believe this affects A2Plus not Assm3 or Assm4.

Can you elaborate why? I don't see why one workbench would be different to the others.

[Cyclonit]

Having a separate file name and being able to write properties from PDM to the file would be nice.
Also I believe this affects A2Plus not Assm3 or Assm4.

As I stated earlier, file-names are up to the user and creating an artificial restriction in FreeCAD just to have two different file extensions is not worth it. Whether a PDM can write properties to the file is irrelevant to whether there are two different kinds of files. Adding an interface to allow external tools to add or modify metadata in FreeCAD files is a good idea, but I see no reason to limit this capability to assembly files. Adding authors or other kinds of metadata to parts is equally useful.

[dan-miel]

Can you elaborate why? I don't see why one workbench would be different to the others.

A true part file contains one part which can be assigned a material. An assembly file contains part files which may contain pieces of aluminum and some bolts which it becomes harder to assign an assembly file one type of material. A2+ uses parts and then uses constraints in the assembly file to make the assembly. In Assembly 3 and 4, to my understanding, you constrain parts together to create a part or an assembly in the same file. It gives more flexibility but blurs the difference between a part and assembly.

file-names are up to the user and creating an artificial restriction in FreeCAD just to have two different file extensions is not worth it.

Why stop at two different file extensions? What if you looked in a file directory and saw the extensions FCdoc, FCss, FCassm2, FCpart2, FCassm3, FCassm4, FCpdf, FCArch, FCTdraw. Would that help humans find what file they want? If someone wanted to write a PDM the programmer would have a standard FreeCAD naming convention to work with rather than examining each file to determine what kind of file it is.

Adding an interface to allow external tools to add or modify metadata in FreeCAD files is a good idea, but I see no reason to limit this capability to assembly files.

I do not believe my statement limits the transfer of metadata to assemblies.
Dan

[Cyclonit]

Why stop at two different file extensions? What if you looked in a file directory and saw the extensions FCdoc, FCss, FCassm2, FCpart2, FCassm3, FCassm4, FCpdf, FCArch, FCTdraw. Would that help humans find what file they want? If someone wanted to write a PDM the programmer would have a standard FreeCAD naming convention to work with rather than examining each file to determine what kind of file it is.

Any tool dealing with binary files must always verify that the file is of the expected type. File extensions are merely part of the file name and thus null and void if you want to determine the content of a file. Thus a proper PDM system must inspect each file in your project directory and determine whether it contains parts or assemblies any ways. I am not familiar with the binary format used in FreeCAD but checking if a file contains assemblies or parts is most likely a trivial affair.

Which brings me back to square one. If your PDM is dependent on each file containing either parts or assemblies but never both, that is a limitation of your PDM. The proper place to handle this limitation is as part of your PDM and not within FreeCAD. It'd be trivial to detect non-suitable files and inform the user about this. If you want to go a step further you could create an extension to FreeCAD to impose this limitation to those working on your project. But imposing it on every other user too simply goes too far.