Disable "versioning"

[jkelindberg]

For me, the version management is not at all useful. It is only causing problems. Currently I have models with ~20 saves and thus ~20 versions and I want to remove them. But F360 will not let me do it because it claims one of versions (it will not tell me which one) is in use somewhere else (it will not tell me where). Checking the "Used In" gives me nothing so it is all a bit of a mystery. Anyway, long story short; I would like an option to disable versions so that I can immediately and indefinitely disable it once and for all.

[SolubleSpork]

Where are you running into problems with versions?  Since Fusion doesn't store a copy of each version on your system, it doesn't take up disk space.  I don't see a reason to remove old versions.  They are hidden most of the time, yet accessible when you need to promote a previous version.  I don't see where disabling them would give any benefit.

[jkelindberg]

Thanks for the comment, @SolubleSpork.

It is a problem for me, because I have conceptual variants of a design, and now when I have selected the final design I want to remove stuff that is irrelevant. I have "solved" it by making a folder to move junk to.

### RANT-WARNING ###

However, this philosophy of "well, there is unlimited space so let's use it" is not one I subscribe to. For one, it hurts my brain to waste things, and second it is environmentally unfriendly (uses power and resources) for no reason at all other than a (for me) rather useless feature. It is a similar mindset that has caused software developers (not the nice developers of Fusion 360 I hope) to not care about optimization of code size and performance (unlimited space, unlimited RAM, unlimited processing power), churning out scheet that "works" but is rife with bugs and consume enormous amounts of RAM and disk space completely unnecessarily. The install size of Microsoft Word is in the gigabytes! It is absolutely insane, it is more (genetic) code than makes up a human!

[SolubleSpork]

I guess I don't see the problem still.  If you have a final design that has remnant bodies or components of other conceptual variants, then you can delete them.. Or you can just export the final body/component into a new file and delete the old one, then you only have one body and nothing extraneous in your case.  But otherwise, I don't see how power and resources are affected by versions and how turning off that functionality solves any actual problems.

I don't mean to sound like i'm shooting down your idea by the way, I just want to understand different ways that different people use Fusion.  If you are doing something that I haven't thought of, and version cause problems in that workflow, then maybe this suggestion deserves my support and I can expand my Fusion skills to incorporate your workflow.  So I'm just trying to get more info for myself (and others that may chime in for that matter) about what the goal is and where the limitations are.

[jkelindberg]

Yes I'm sorry, this may very well be a problem exclusive to me I suppose.

I'm not referring to bodies or components, I am talking about models in the data panel.

[daniel_lyall]

@jkelindberg Quite often if I need to do something similar I do a save as then delete the original file in my hub or data panel, sometimes fusion will not delete a file doing it this way renaming the file you wont to get rid of does work for me.

I do the same thing for a model that needs to go in a different folder.

A massive workaround yes it is.

[HughesTooling]

@SolubleSpork 

There a a few problems caused by versions and having no way to delete or at least remove some.  If you have linked designs it becomes very difficult to delete a linked design that's no longer needed because it's still linked to the version history of the assembly file. 

Another place adding versions becomes a problem is when you create 2d drawings. Every time you make an edit to the design even if it's just changing visibility or working in the CAM environment where no changes to the model have been made you get nagged to update the 2d drawing every time you open them even though nothing's changed so then you end up with multiple version updates for the 2d drawing where nothing's changed as well. 

Then with all these useless versions it makes it very difficult to find an old version if you actually need to!

Mark

[SolubleSpork]

@HughesTooling You made some greta points on finding old versions and getting yelled at to updating the drawing for visibility changes and the like.  I don't know the answer then for how best to solve this or how it should look but I definitely see now where something could be improved.  Got my vote.

[ToddHarris7556]

+1 for the idea of being able to control versioning.

Agree with @HughesTooling  that we don't always label every incremental change, so finding the right version out of the last 73 can be time-consuming. 

[kratschp]

I think that a multi-tiered approach would solve many issues. Most of the time I work within a two leveled revision system where concept/development revision are at Rev A, B, C, etc. and released and controlled documents follow a numbered revision scheme, Rev01, 02, 03 etc. Maybe some sort of add-on that lets you assign a revision with notes that replaces the V1, V2, V3, scheme with R01, R02, or RA, RB, RC, at any time during the design revision process. That way Autodesk can leave their current version scheme in tact and the revision scheme would be layered on top of it.

[Anonymous]

Not for me, the way i used it with variants concepts is save the older version as a new model, without makeng any changes to the first design. Is completelly usefull for me.

[kratschp]

Agree tcorrea1 but if you have a design with multiple components and there are drawings associated with that design... the minute you do a save as... you've broken the link. Maybe there's something I'm missing. How do you handle drawings associated with a model?

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Don't remove versioning, but bring back branches again.

[kratschp]

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Branches would work for me.

[Anonymous]

I'm getting a kick out of the ~20 complaint. I've got one model thats topped out over 300. It was nice when we realized we'd gone the wrong direction and could go back to around 200. The trick is learning to put notes to the versions. 

[lichtzeichenanlage]

@Anonymous : commenting your work is always a good thing. In addition you can lower the number of versions by forcing recovery saves ("local saves") by pressing Ctrl + Shift + S  | Command + Shift + S . So the save version command (Ctrl + s | Command + s)  is more like a "real commit". 

[Anonymous]

What if instead of straight integer version increases, it changed by a smaller amount?

Instead of V1, V2, V3, you would get V1.01, V1.02, V1.03 (if it recognizes "03" as three, then going beyond .99 could increase the "0.03" to "0.003", etc.)

Actual version increases could then be user controlled, i.e. you manually mark when you have a true "new version" or a "major revision" of the part.  I hadn't even thought of past version referencing other components locking things down, but perhaps when a major revision is created, it separates itself from previous revisions?

This would allow model history to be tracked (saves/minor revisions), part version to be tracked (major revisions/product releases), and would prevent past references from interfering with the current model.

For anyone who doesn't  know why auto-incrementing versions on save is annoying, think of a model like a published work (a book for instance).  In the process of writing said book, you will save it multiple times to keep your progress.  However, upon completion of the book (and hundreds of saves later) you release... version 1 of the book.

[_Marek]

I fully agree with jkelindberg. Aggressive versioning has no any explanation. As IT programmer I use always versioning of my software but I have never seen versioning system as aggressive as Fusion 360 offers. Usually programmer decides which steps are just temporary backups and can be combined together in final (sub)versions. It doesn't make sense keep dozens of unneeded steps.  I would expect the same functionality from Fusion 360. This is international standard of versioning systems. There is no reason to insist on collecting rubbish. It only consumes limited space in the cloud. Only author of the project is aware of what steps in his work are worth to call it "versions".

In my opinion, the version is important change in project - definitely backups are not versions and should be able to combine them into single version.  

[Anonymous]

So I derived a component from a design. I started working with it but then realised it wasn't what I needed for my assembly. So I go to delete it.

No I can't

Why? Well because its been saved when I closed my computer last night and today I opened it and saved it. Now last nights save is an old copy. But why can't I delete the file? Well because that old version was derived and I can't unlink the old version. That is linked for life. That entire file now is undeletable. Why? because in its history is a linked file. Even if I delete the body I originally derived it from.... Oh no... its in the history now, its a linked derived version now it stays there for the rest of my life. Even thought I have no used for it. I have to look through all sorts of files to find the relevant ones. Every stupid idea I had, even ones that last a few minutes, there for life.

If I share that folder with someone they see all these elements that have nothing to do with the design?  This is not versioning, it is file back up masquerading as version control and it has been mixed up with the linking of files work flow.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

I see your point. But it's still versioning. But they try to keep all
versions stable, so AD keeps all linked components.

[Riley_Amara]

I'd like to control or change the version system a bit more. I often have to make assemblies and in order to make correct measurements sometimes I have to open a sketch or enter a operation in order to measure a part because the inspect measure function sucks. Anyway, every time I open a sketch or menu it calls it an edit and creates a new version regardless of whether or not there even was a change. I can't even use the undo to go back to the original and stop it from changing the version.

So basically if I open a file and do anything but rotate it, it's adding to the versions which sucks both to see the number going up and to have to deal with the history being muddled by 20 non changed versions.