You might have already noticed on the web or from our docs, but @clrkng and I worked on a new feature that you might find useful! You can now easily store project info, design values, notes, or any other general info alongside your geometry with Globals. On the web, youāll find the āGlobalsā button in the sidebar of any stream you have write access to. This will pop you into the editor which will let you build and structure your globals however you fancy.
The globals are effectively stored on a separate branch and thus make it easy to keep track of changes and go back to previous versions if needed.
This is just v1 of this feature and weāre curious to see how you use it and how it can be improved! Feel free to drop any bug reports, requests, or suggestions down below.
Personally, Iād use this as a way to store general calc / design values separate from the geometry so I donāt have to manage them together. I can then pull in the values alongside the geometry into my calculation scripts to recalculate values as the geometry evolves. Previously, I would have had a separate stream to hold this static data - having it all together just makes it more convenient!
It might be handy if users are able to create a template object so you can easily add multiple of them. For example, if you want to define multiple room objects with the same parameter names (e.g. height, width, length) you create 1 template object and then create as much of them as you like without the need to create each parameter 1 by 1.
Maybe the following is a bit off topic, but the predefined property āProject Codeā in the Globals reminded me of it: would something like the projects in Speckle V1 will make itās way into V2 because weāve found it an easy way to share various streams with multiple people?
great idea re the templates! alan and I were actually discussing that it might be cool to have a switch to flip between the nice ui and a json editor
(basically what is happening under the hood ) which would make it super easy to copy and paste sections or paste in pre-created structures.
defs something to think about tho re making repeatable structures easier to create - thanks for the suggestion!
@dimitrie yes makes sense, thank you for the update!
@izzylys cool idea to have a json editor! I think it would definitely work for most of us. And you would also be able to create a json export from another software / generate it via code and paste it into the globals.
Searching for āStream templateā brought me here.
Yes, it would be nice to have templates for global variables and also for streams.
If I have a stream for each project and I want to create a new project, it would be nice to have a set of branches already pre-defined.
on another note,
The globals branch of GlobalVariables is a real branch of the stream.
If you push whatever data to the globals branch from connectors, you end up overwriting the global variables. This is a behavior we might want, because I could have a grasshopper definition which I could use to set my global variables. Nevertheless itās something that I would clearly explain into the docs.
ā¦because now globals it became a keyword and Iām sure somebody will name a branch like that missing up things. @SpeckleTeam
Yep, agreed - I think we need a tutorial on āhow to use the globals branchā, where we can cover all these aspects!
You canāt create a āglobalsā branch from the frontend anymore - so that part is safe, but itās not fully bulletproof.
A nice way of actually using the globals branch that iāve seen before is basically going through an update flow in grasshopper to add geometric global vars:
populate online with initial variables
pull it in grasshopper, expand and add extra geometric data - like site boundaries, volumes, etc.
) which would make it super easy to copy and paste sections or paste in pre-created structures.