Contribution Guide

[cbergeron1]

Hey there! Love the addon, do you have a contribution guide where we can help tackle any open issues or potentially create features for the addon?

[Le0Michine]

Hi, nope, not at this point at least. Having it certainly would make sense. Just from the top of my mind here are the things I'm thinking about when addressing issues or adding new features

• following the defined standards, trying to stick to the original spec as close as possible to avoid compatibility issues. There are some things which deviate slightly to simplify the code or improve printability, but the general approach is to retain compatibility.
• general usefulness. It's impossible to support every single design variation so the plugin is focused on most generic things and provides a kick start for further customization and design.
• keeping UI simple. That's related to previous one, UI should be as intuitive as possible and the more parameters are added the harder it is to maintain. For some features it might make sense to create dedicated commands with own inputs etc.
• sticking to CAD design best practices, eg sketches are fully defined, using simple features wherever possible
• some coding guidelines, based on experience, avoid assumptions about amount of elements in arrays or their order (that can and does often change between fusion releases), content of the arrays also has to be validated and filtered for operations like combine, avoid complex operations like offset, face extend etc, they work well for UI user but can also break after new fusion release.

There are also a bunch of things I'm seeing being requested quite often

• export/import of configurations to make preset libraries. There could be a challenge with keeping backwards compatibility with older configurations when new features are released. Imported configs also require through validation with meaningful feedback if something is wrong.
• being able to edit the model post creation using the same plugin
• using expressions and global parameters where it makes sense instead of precalculated values (so that user could change them and see the design being adjusted). This somewhat overlaps with previous one but still has own utility

A couple things which I aren't expressed explicitly, but cause some frustration for users

• there isn't indication of a new release, so users don't know when to update, fusion doesn't seem to have built in functionality. That causes people to file issues which have been resolved in the new release
• assumptions about measurement units, it looks like there are might be a few places where the plugin makes implicit assumptions about project using mm as main units. From user perspective that's just annoying to see it fail for no apparent reason. Could add a warning checking for measurement units and also figure out why that happens and how to support them properly.
• figure out a better way to manage application UI state so it isn't so painful to add new stuff. There needs to be a good abstraction layer which can manage UI elements lifecycle, their state and propagate onChange events. That would simplify UI changes and potential for regression

I can add these things into a readme file, let me know if you have any other ideas