@unknownuser said:
There was a lot of debate about this before launch. We wanted DCs to follow the rules of SketchUp as much as possible. So the question became: "If I have 3 DCs in a model, and I scale one of them, should all of them update? Or should only the one I scaled?"
I think you can imagine what the arguments on both sides were. In the end, we thought it would be more frustrating to have every instance in the model update instead of just the one you scaled.
We've talked about adding some kind of toggle that would allow you to choose which behavior you prefer. Any thoughts on that? Do you guys think we did it backwards? I'd love to hear your ideas.
Cheers,
wow, my posts never get so many resonses. As far as behavior is concerned, I expected them to work as normal components do now. I will often create a regular component that can be scaled in a single direction - like a comlumn or a step for example, so that I can stretch each to fit and still be able to edit them globally.
While it's true you can still edit the sub-components of a dynamic component, there's a catch. I had a window with mullions, for example. The component is dynamic, so that I can stretch it to be wider or taller without distorting the mullions, which works great, but I can't actually edit the mullion component, because it's size is fixed in the dynamic component so that it won't scale inappropriately (LenX =6", for example). I tried creating subcomponents with buffer room so that I could modify the geometry without exceeding a set envelope, but then I can't have a a plane of glass that properly references the mullion geometry.
I see two potential solutions:
A. A third instance type be introduced that includes edited dynamic components, and a function wherein dynamic components can at least be swapped and edits reapplied for each instance - scale, layer, etc. This may even be possible with some savy ruby scripting, but I imagine a unique naming convention for edited dynamic components would keep it from getting really messy.
B. A less preferred option but one that would work would be to introduce dynamic variables - rather than 'LenX =6"' maybe the syntax could be 'LenX =' wherein the length would always equal the inherent maximum dimension of the compoonent or group. This would allow changes to subcomponents that could effect other dependent subcomponents.
regardless, thanks for picking up the topic!