Datum entity vs Body

[chrisb]

Could it be that there are coorporate moles in our community?

Of course this is possible. But did you look at whom you are talking about and who is taking part in discussions? These people have done so much that I can hardly believe that their hearts don't beat for FreeCAD.

[NormandC]

Hey I admit it! I'm a corporate mole! I've been helping hundreds if not thousands of people on the forum since 2010, spending thousands of hours on my free time on the forum along with packaging FreeCAD for Ubuntu, writing documentation on the wiki, but it was all a ruse!!!

Tell me Pauvres_honteux, what have YOU done exactly to actually help the FreeCAD project? Absolutely NOTHING.

[chrisb]

Hey I admit it! I'm a corporate mole! I've been helping hundreds if not thousands of people on the forum since 2010,

[irony]
It is the high quality of your contributions which raises suspect. I have hardly ever never seen a professional hotline of such speed and high quality, so that must be simply because you are paid better.
[/irony]

[miniellipse]

Yesterday I got a sinking feeling in my gut after I reread this topic a few times.

Could it be that there are coorporate moles in our community? Constantly nudging and poking the development in a direction away from the big fives market?
I mean continuing on this road will utterly stop in a dead end ally. And that would serve the biggies really well, getting rid of all mid-level competition AND stopping the only real threat there is: FreeCAD. They would increase their market and be king of the hills, unthreatened for the foreseeable future.

There are MANY MANY of us who are eternally grateful and appreciative of the work that has gone into developing FreeCAD and all the incredible help we are receiving. Do not let these views and opinions jeopardize FreeCAD.

[NormandC]

Nothing is jeopardized here. FreeCAD will hopefully go on. It is just talk - and not very useful one at this point in time, because as I already stated, nobody is developing the PartDesign workbench anymore. Once interested developers manifest themselves, then this would be somewhat useful - but until it happens...

There is so much that one can do to actually, really help the FreeCAD project, even for non-developers. So very few people help. But it is much easier to only ask for stuff and throw wild accusations about corporate moles. Or write a topic in an alarmist manner weeks/months before the planned release, saying FreeCAD is not going in the right way, that the wheels are on top of the car, that it's going to be a huge mistake, the release must be postponed and stuff started over, yada yada; then say once FC is released "best release ever". Gee, I wonder where the FUD was coming from.

[Pauvres_honteux]

Intriguing indeed

[Pauvres_honteux]

ping

ping

I'd like to ask you two, hypothetically, how much work it would be to:

1) rename the freecad file ending to "FCpart"?
2) make the "FCpart" containing a partbody such as it can never be deleted but replaced?
3) allow point, line, curve, plane and surface to be parent for solids inside bodies?
4) allow bodies with "negative sign" via (the not yet existing) boolean function?
5) create an FCassy file ending and only allowing it to load other files (FCpart+FCassy) and keep track of their translation and rotation?

[freedman]

Time and usage can change the way we think about using file extensions.
Lets say the file extensions were changed, does it help the program or does it help the OS list files better....

I like the generic extension, naming is such a relative thing. If I mfg. jet engine blades then my final assembly is the blade, I give the engine builder the assy. file. Now the engine builder takes my blade file and names it a part of the engine, they take all the parts and make an assembly and give that file to the airplane mfg. They rename that file to a part file because they build planes.
The person generating the files will be able to name them and if someone new comes along then they will need to learn the previous structure. It's just like software with multiple files.

I use "A_name" for my assemblies and '"B_name" for Bodies and "P_name" for parts. This way the OS will list them A_ names first. Actually I list my whole C drive like that, any folders I want to use start with "A_" that way they list first. Almost no searching thru folders.

As far as most everything else we all know that Assembly2,3,4,5 is one day coming and will be used. The way I see it, at that point you can draw everything upside down and 20 feet off of zero, assembly will attach it.

[Pauvres_honteux]

I use "A_name" for my assemblies and '"B_name" for Bodies and "P_name" for parts. This way the OS will list them A_ names first.

Hi freedman, about separate files; for very small projects I do the same as you do, but it quickly becomes an overwhelming work when you get into the 100 000 of files and totally impossible when these can be combined in different ways, as one does in the automotive, aviation, shipbuilding, space and nuclear plants industri.

To have any chance at all, one must utilize databases to handle all this. And that's where separate files comes to work. Databases excell in managing/juggling files, not so much in handling their content.

These databases are better known as PDM-systems, Product Data Management.

[freedman]

Once you get to the PDM level everything is turned into a part number, then you use a Database system to tell you what the number is all about. This is a level where they care little about the file extension. All the rev,product, type are all embedded in the 100456-345-3446-100.

Maybe have Freecad generate Icons for the OS to display like in Windows Explorer for instance, put an A in the middle of the icon for Assembles and so on... This is something that the workbench could do and not affect the entire program.