Here is a list of improvements and desirable features for DSM 5, after having worked ~16 month with the software, mainly on a light vehicle project.
# View
- Always allow Rotating on any view axis, maybe with an extra key - currently it is sometimes neccessary to rotate the part in order to work in a specific view angle
- Text on a plane is sometimes viewable even after the plane has been assigned to a de-selected layer > should disappear
- 'Assign to layer' does not work on an assembly level, only component
- Show the name of a part in its context menu - quicker than "locate in document tree"
- Context menu of a part > center screen here
- View-menu option to show/hide all planes and construction lines
- Clicking on the axis name in the xyz cube should not turn the view by 180° - happens too often unintenionally
# Measure
- Measure: When selecting a cylinder, also show its length - what now needs ctrl-selection of the opposing faces
- Measure: Offer all the options (and the same results) as if you use move-ruler, currently the latter often offers an anker point where the fomer does not
- Measure distance to a (rounded) edge, be it without a point there
# Connections between parts and documents
It costed me several hours to correct or re-design parts that were changed un-intentionally as sub-components of another design. This may be avoided with a disciplinned working style, what not everyone always has:
- Option to list a) all connected (sub-) components or parts of the current one and
b) all uses of the selected part in others.
- 'Source > Make independent' and 'internalize all' only work for the current component level - if you forget to internalize a component in a sub-branch, and edit and save it, the (external or referenced) parts gets changed too > what it needs:
"Make this component branch TOTALLY independent",
or "Delete all references FOR GOOD".
- Error message about 'inter-doc reference' - it would be helpful to get the name of the document/s involved, maybe with the option to open them.
# Move Handle
- There should be a way to re-align or reset the move handle on a part permanently.
Currently once it is shifted by a (small) angle, caused by whatever previous steps, the part/axis always has to be aligned before a move operation.
- It would be great to be able to set a turning axis independently of the face that controls the amount of movement; currently I find myself changing +-0.1 degrees turning a part, in close-zoomed view, in order to achieve this kind of effect.
- Move-Upto should always do what move-ruler > 0 (zero) does, now sometimes the part just vanishes to some parallel universe ...
- After changing a move-anchor/axis, the new anchor should be shown more clearly (color / thickness)
- Some move operations (of vertices, faces etc.) produce a freeze or crash of DSM - maybe stability improvements are possible
- Option to turn a selection by 180° instead of 90° with double-clicking the arrow (maybe with a key modifier)
# History
- Option to Undo design changes while keeping the current View (i.e. ignore view changes)
- Option to (show and) Undo only changes in the current document
- Show the component affected in the Undo list
- Option to undo a specific step in the history list (seems to be realised in Spaceclaim)
# Structure
- With a copy-and-paste operation, it would be nice to have the option to choose the component - in the tree - where to paste the content in
- Tree view > "Move to new component" should generate the component on the current level, not on the highest of the current document - at least as an option
# Constrained based Sketching
Activating this option in settings-advanced slows down my PC (Lenovo X1) so much that it is practically not usable any more - maybe this can be optimised somehow.