[Feature Request/Structural change] "Splitting" of TD

[tobiasfalk]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Problem description

I think it would be beneficial and good if, the TD WB would be "split". What I mean by it is that the Base drawing preparations, like creating a page, inserting a Template, exporting a Page and insert Annotation should be available for creating another WB that also creates a Page but does not need the ability to insert a View of a 3D body and insert dimension.
By splitting TD in to a Base Draw WB and Tech Draw (witch inherits Base Draw) it would allow other WBs to use it, some that come to my mind are a Schematic WB (posted in the Forum about it once) and a BOM WB could use it to create a Paged BOM for printing. This would also automatically prevent the existing of multiple Template formats for a Page, since every WB base of this uses the same.

I understand that this is not something that will happen tomorrow or even before 1.0, but I still think that doing it would make future development easier and the Program more stream lined.
After the Split is done, one can look if it would be possible to make this base also available for the creation of Python based WBs.

@WandererFan there are definitely drawbacks to this, but I do not know enough about TD that I am able to name them, a´do you know them?

To recap:

Splitting TD in to:

• Base Draw, a WB base that has the ability to create a page, inserting a Template, exporting a Page, insert Annotation and other basic drawing stuff
• Tech Draw, to the user the same as now, but it inherits Base Draw, and so its ability, and then adds all the other stuff it has like inserting a View and adding measurements

Benefits:

• Gives the ability to use this base to create other WB that need a Page and so on
• Prevents multiple WB exclusive Page Templates, since they all use the same Page base

Full version info

OS: Windows 10 build 19045
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.22.0dev.37213 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: main
Hash: 20e7deb86a8c6c2cd2378f09f8313760933f3a5c
Python 3.11.9, Qt 5.15.13, Coin 4.0.2, Vtk 9.2.6, OCC 7.7.2
Locale: German/Germany (de_DE)
Installed mods: 
  * DynamicData 2.60.0
  * fasteners 0.5.15
  * kicadStepUpMod 11.1.0

Subproject(s) affected?

Techdraw

Anything else?

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[FEA-eng]

Tech Draw, to the user the same as now

If, according to your idea, TechDraw is going to stay the same with its full functionality (it definitely needs to) then it's not really splitting but rather making a new workbench based on TechDraw and being its highly simplified version for use with other workbenches, right? I guess that such a "BaseDraw" wb should be add-on since it would be used with other add-ons.

[tobiasfalk]

@FEA-eng
I would not actually make this "WB" visible to the user, since it is more of a building block of a WB than a whole WB it self.
Maybe me calling it a WB was misleading.
And splitting because as to how I see it, the code for the Page creation and so would be "removed" from TD and moved in to its one "quasi/sude" WB that is then inherited by TD, and so from outside there is no change, since the Tool are still visible and usable to the User. But when one than creates another WB with that also inherits this "quasi/sude" WB than the user also sees the base tool for creating a page and so on, currently the only way would be by inheriting TD, but the one needs to remove all the TD specific tool that are not needed in his WB manual, since they are never inherited.