Confused about Edit in Place

[michael55SE4]

In my job, I basically modify a widget to be different lengths and widths for each customer.  I have been copying the basic design and modifying the parameters for each customer, but that has the unfortunate side effect of when we make a change to the basic design, each of those copies have to be edited by hand, taking days of work.

When Edit in Place came out I had hopes that I would now be able to customize each customer's widget, but still be able to pull major design changes from the original.  Instead, each modification to an inserted design changes the original, which defeats the purpose, or at least makes it useless for me.

I've watched several Edit in Place tutorials and I still don't get why that feature exists.  But never mind that, is there another feature that would allow me to stop making more and more copies that each have to be maintained separately?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Your observations are accurate.  What you want is generally called configurations.  This is sometimes referred to as "family of designs", or "table-driven designs.  This is something we are actively working on now, but won't be available for a while.

You are correct that Edit in Place is not that.  In a nutshell, EIP is just a convenient way to edit an external design, in the context of the assembly.  This is a way to refer to designs outside of the design you are editing, and drive its geometry from how it is placed in the assembly.  You can easily do this today with local components (extrude to the face of another component), but before EIP, you could not do this with external components.  There is still only one copy of that design, and all instances of it are the same.

As to workarounds for configurations until we are able to deliver it, there are some techniques that can help.  Derived Component can take a base design, and create an associative copy of that design in which you can make some limited variations (the emphasis on limited is important).  And, @TrippyLighting has a post about "configurations lite" that I will look for, but can't find at the moment.

[michael55SE4]

Thanks for the clear explanation, I appreciate you taking the time, and for putting the name to the feature I'm looking for.

I'll look at derived components with the understanding that feature is limited.

--Michael