This is another post from the "Missing 5% functionality that makes users avoid this tool" novella.
Comments!
I love comments in the FeatureManager Tree. They are fantastic for many reasons:
- A quick way to include your thoughts directly in the model.
- Can include pictures
- Can take screenshots
- Can be used as "bookmarks" in history of the part using the Part Reviewer! This way, a user who is not familiar with your model can roll the FeatureManager tree automatically from bookmark to bookmark. So instead of wasting time going through 100 features, he or she can stop only at the 5 that you deemed critical.
- Feature with comments get an entry in the Comments Folder
- Feature with comments get a special icon in the FeatureManager Tree
Bottom line: comments can be very useful. If I were a manager of a team of SW users, I would brainstorm with the team the best way to use them and then make using them mandatory!
The missing 5%:
1. The Comments folder is almost useless:
When I click on one or more features listed there I want to get full functionality:
- get the context toolbar
- get the standard RMB menu
- select the feature(s) in the graphics area and the FeatureManager tree.
2. There is no indication that a screenshot or image has been added to the comment. If an image is available, it should be included in the pop-up caption.
What else would you use Comments for?
One minor issue with comments, and its workaround:
* You can only select one entity to place a comment upon.
Whether it's a feature, part, or subassembly, I believe that you cannot select several items and make a comment which refers to all of them.
You can, however, place any of those entities in a folder and comment on the folder, as referring to all of its contents.
Complications:
Maybe I already had reasonable folders and don't need to reshuffle it.
Maybe those entities are nowhere near adjacent in the tree, i.e. scattered up and down.
Maybe later, someone moves, deletes, etc. some of the items in that folder.
Also, we cannot comment upon Selection Sets. That would hold and retain its applicability to these things right here. That's ultimately what I'm talking about.
Furthermore, I'd really really appreciate some Status in comments, matched with colored icons. It even looks like a sheet from a stack of self-adhesive notes produced by 3M to Post upon things (avoiding a valid product word here..). We should be able to name our own categories or color codes, but Critical, Driving, Pending, and Preliminary are some useful ones that quickly come to mind.