treeview: identifying part dependencies

[sangue]

Not sure if I'm creating a dupe (at least i could not find anything on it) but i wonder if the following has been discussed:
Copying parts without subparts creates instances of the subparts, with is really useful. There is a caveat though:

1. Identifying instances (in treeview)
When using treeview a lot it might become tricky to remember if something is used once or multiple times, since there is no indication of that.
For unexperienced users that can lead to unintentionally modifying other parts of the model they are not aware of.
It would make sense to have a modified part icon in treeview, to indicate if a node is a 'class/instance/used multiple times' (compared to a unique part).

2. Decoupling items from the class.
When making instances, there's always that one item that has to be different.
A solution is to copy the item and drag that copy back into the nested structure (ie a bool) where it came from and then delete the original.
Items identified under point 1 could then have a 'decoupling' function that regenerates them in place without reference to the class.

...does that make any sense or am i off topic?

[openBrain]

I think it can be clearer with a sample file and/or some screenshots.
Would the dependency graph cover some need?

[chrisb]

Moved to Help forum.

[sangue]

Looked up what you meant with dependency graph.
Yep. But that should be a view that's available in FreeCAD without external lib ideally.
It could simply be an option to structure Treeview.

Screenshots? Sure...

First idea is to show the number of instances/copies behind the object:

copies.jpg (22.44 KiB) Viewed 1306 times

Secondly, it might help to contextually 'show' (eg highlight in Treeview or main Window?) all instances to identify them:

showinstance.jpg (41.04 KiB) Viewed 1306 times

Vice versa, it would be really helpful to have the same contextual 'drilldown' option in the main view (not showing the topmost part, but the bottom-most fragment):

showintree.jpg (27.2 KiB) Viewed 1306 times

Too bad this got moved to HELP. We're talking development here, not help.

[chrisb]

You may have a look at DAG view.
I moved the topic back to Open discussion.

[sangue]

Thanks for the tip. Looks interesting.
I followed the recipe on how to activate DAG-view from here:
https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DAG%20view / Activating the DAG view
The key BaseApp/Preferences/DockWindows/DAGView was already present and I did set it to TRUE.
But there's no DAG-view under View → Panels → DAG view
(also restarted FreeCAD and rechecked the value: still TRUE)

where does it hide in this version:
OS: Windows 10
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.4 (GitTag)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-18
Hash: 980bf9060e28555fecd9e3462f68ca74007b70f8
Python version: 3.6.6
Qt version: 5.6.2
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.3.0
Locale: German/Switzerland (de_CH)

[openBrain]

I followed the recipe on how to activate DAG-view from here:
https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DAG%20view / Activating the DAG view
The key BaseApp/Preferences/DockWindows/DAGView was already present and I did set it to TRUE.

You didn't follow correctly.
'DockWindows/DAGView' should in this case be a folder.
The key (that you have to set to True) is 'DockWindows/DAGView/Enabled'.

[chrisb]

I followed the recipe on how to activate DAG-view from here:
https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DAG%20view / Activating the DAG view
The key BaseApp/Preferences/DockWindows/DAGView was already present and I did set it to TRUE.
But there's no DAG-view under View → Panels → DAG view

I just tried with a plain vanilla config. DAGView didn't appear before I restarted FreeCAD.

[drmacro]

There is also a macro (I'm not at my computer and i forget where i got it , there is a thread ...) that shows what the selected tree item is attached to.