How do you currently address this problem, without creating a new configuration?
Imagine you have an assembly with several display states. Each display state has various components hidden. What is visible in each display state represents a different variation of the product.
There are major benefits for using display states instead of configurations for that, but I suggest we do not debate them here.
When creating a drawing view, representing a certain display state, the user would like to get a BOM containing only the visible components.
One way to achieve that is to autoballoon the drawing view, reveal the ballooning status in the BOM and use that column for manually hiding rows that have no balloons attached.
Is there a better way?
Note that Exclude from BOM or envelops would not work in this scenario, since such settings would apply to all display states.
I suggest that we need an extra filter for the BOM based in the hide/show attribute of a component. If I could just create a column where I can see one of two values: Hidden or Shown, so I could sort by that column and then manually hide the rows with the Hidden value, that would be a huge step in the right direction.
Matthew Lorono, what do you think? Anyone else?
Great suggestion, Glenn!
I'd like to further this suggest by asking if Solidworks can report back a BOM based on the items visible in a drawing view, without the requirement for a specific display state or configuration. Solidworks must have the data available to know what lines are in a view and what part they belong to. Therefore it should not be difficult for Solidworks to have a BOM option to include only parts visible in a drawing view. If I insert such a BOM and then hide a part in the drawing view, the BOM should update to reflect the change. I suspect this is an enhancement request. If you are familiar with Lego instruction manuals or Ikea manuals (which I know you are ), they list only the parts needed on a particular step in the assembly sequence. I'd like to be able to this in SolidWorks without have to create 50 configurations or 50 display states.
One other trick would be to exclude parts from the BOM that have already been assembled but are shown in a current drawing view. This last comment is not critical and likely overcomplicates the request.
As an enhancement, how about a special BOM type or mode that is dynamic as it relates to currently shown items. It could even adjust quantities of items based on their current visibility (ie: only 2 screws needed on this step, but 12 are included). That would get you the Ikea manual type functionality.
Matthew Lorono