This may be a possible bug, but I have a difficult time understanding how it could be of any advantage in modeling. In the screencast, I demonstrate a model with all components and their respective bodies. When the timeline marker is moved back to a point in history, the bodies for the "stretchers" component are no longer visible. This is because component at that point in time, relative to the document component, also has its marker saved at a previous point in history.
It is not clear if this is a bug or not, but activating the "stretchers" component and fast forwarding its history marker to the end creates all the bodies, but its new marker position isn't saved. When activating the document component, its history marker is simply moved to the most recent position, leaving the "stretchers" component's marker position at a previous point in history unchanged.
The inability to change the marker's position makes it nearly impossible to perform certain operations. In my case, I wanted to create bolt holes through the stretchers and the legs. Since the legs and stretchers are separate components, it has to be done at the document component level, but activating the document component resets the "stretchers" component causing some of the stretchers at an uncreated state.
I'm not 100% sure I understand your concern here, @markusbarnes , but I think it is around the behavior of the timeline when a component is activated. The "filtering" of the timeline that happens by default when a component is active is controllable. If you want to see the entire timeline when a component is active, just uncheck the "Hide All Inactive Features" option on the gearbox icon at the end of the timeline:
This is just a filtering of the view of the timeline, those invisible features are still in the timeline, even though you cannot see them. If you keep all the features for a given component together in the timeline, then having this option enabled should not cause unexpected behaviors.
I understand you @markusbarnes!
It does feel like a poor default behavior, but there is a solution. When you move/translate/align a component, you must check the "Capture Position" checkbox in the dialog prompt. This will save the modification in your timeline. If you do not check this checkbox, you will notice that your modification is not saved in the timeline, and thus when you move the timeline marker back and then return to present the components appear to reset or lost all move/translate/align modifications.
Thanks for posting this question! I struggled with this too but I'm glad I searched and found your question and now I hope you and others can find my solution here.
Cheers!
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