Improve versioning system

[Anonymous]

Saving and creating new versions should be changed and separated. I think current solution when you save design and Fusion will automatically create a new version isn't good since versions are useful tool to go back and do revisions. Current behaviour will cause a lot of versions over small changes (or no changes at all if you for example click "Edit Sketch" and exit it without doing anything and then save) which is not useful.

What I would propose is the system where you save a file and Fusion will ask you if you want to create a new version from it (add an option like "Save as a new version"). That way it will save changes to current version by default (Ctrl+S) and if you want you can create a new version (i.e. Ctrl+Shift+S), add description and then continue to work on it.

[Coscor_NPL]

This is a very good idea....! all the small revisions and things you do over the week is fine, but we should be able to 'save versions'

also, being able to make files 'released' or 'indevelopment' or something (maybe the company could make it's own tags?)

good way to maybe do this is to make it like this:

open version 1.00

normal save

version 1.01

normal save

version 1.02

'version save' add tag 'released'

version 2.00

normal save

version 2.01

etc...

[max.hazelrigg]

This is a great idea and something I would greatly appreciate. This could be very powerful if it was developed to be similar to version control software (git, subversion, etc.) for software development. The current behavior is simple and great for most, but if you add a couple more tools this would be great for teams and full production pipelines.

Create a development branch (this could be transparent and happen automatically when you create a project)

Open the file (checkout)

(default behavior with local versions)

Make changes... save

Make changes... save

etc.

(/default behavior)

Check-in and add comments (updates the branch version)

Create a release (release notes that include check-in comments)

Create a new branch (production, development, testing, etc.)

Change branches as needed or go back to a release to review.

[charegb]

A version is a historical record of the design and as such, modifying it with subsequent saves does not feel like the correct thing to me.

I understand what you are asking for in terms of Revisions but fundamentally Versions and Revisions are different. We have a couple of things cooking that should serve your needs for revisions.

1) If you have seem some of our blogs, we are working on branching and merging at the project level and as part of this we have created a concept of a milestone in a project. I think these will work better for pseudo-revision management because they can include all items in a project at a certian stage, rather than that one particular design. This is important in distributed workflows.

2) Later in the year we are also looking at adding a connection to Fusion Lifecycle (formerly Autodesk PLM 360) so that you can manage proper lifecycle of a design and do change orders on released parts etc.

For now, how is this alternate soltuion - You can open a design and as you work on it in a session, Ctrl+Shift+S will create a local recovery save. This is not a new version, but a checkpoint on your machine that you can restore incase Fusion crashes. This will allow you to keep working on a model for many hours doing recovery saves and then you can do a Ctrl+S at the end of the session to commit all your changes in that session as one version.

Thanks,

Bankim

Fusion Product Manager

[TravisJoe]

I understand the frustration with excessive versions, but overall I would rather have too many than not enough. I think this would be less of an issues if there was "Tags" like used in Git software version control. This allows you to manually put a name and save a snapshot of the file(s) at that moment. This could then be used for controlling revisions and design states.

I personally require the ability to go back in time and build an older revision to support a product still in its service life.

To me the high number of versions reminds me more of commits rather then "tags" or "releases" used in Git.

That being said It would be interesting to be able to change the major version number "1.X" and thave the minor version number iterate as it does now. 

Keep in mind I am also a new user and might not have seen all the features available and could be talking about something already available.

[Coscor_NPL]

As TravisJow suggest (and did myself futher up) a 1.x system imho would be really great and simple, it would be a very simple (of my limited knowlage of programming) to just make a box to tick when saving where it said 'major version' and it would make it 2.x etc.

It sounds interesting with the 'brancing' stuff... but as of right now it sounds very complex and work-aroundy.... but ofcause, it's not out yet, so sure it will make sense when perfected 🙂

[brianrepp]

Given the discussion above, and the things being worked on as mentioned by @charegb, we are archiving this idea for future reference.