Deactivate analysis when switching workbenches

[martcram]

Dear developers,

I recently noticed that a FEM analysis remains active/highlighted after switching to a different (possibly unrelated to FEA) workbench, as seen in the attached GIF. I was wondering if there is any reason for this behavior?

FreeCAD version and system info:
OS: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS (Unity/ubuntu)
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.20.26330 (Git)
Build type: Debug
Branch: master
Hash: f7073704e83b5a92217530bc7227f34488933a04
Python version: 3.8.10
Qt version: 5.12.8
Coin version: 4.0.0
OCC version: 7.5.2
Locale: English/United States (en_US)

In my fork of the FreeCAD source code, I made some additions to deactivate/unhighlight the active FEM analysis when the user selects a different workbench. If this small contribution could be helpful, I would be happy to create a pull request.

Best regards,
Martijn

[NewJoker]

The question is whether there are any negative consequences of the current behavior. I often leave the FEM module for a while to check dimensions or modify the model a bit, for example. It seems quite convenient that the Analysis container is still highlighted and there’s no need to activate it again. Unless there are some potential issues that may occur in such cases …

[martcram]

Thank you for your thoughts on this subject. That way, it will indeed save you a few clicks.

To the best of my knowledge, the FEM workbench is presently the only one with which the user can create analysis containers, so there is no ambiguity when the active (FEM) analysis is left activated/highlighted after switching to a different workbench.

However, I am currently working on a workbench for computer-aided assembly planning (i.e., searching feasible assembly sequences based on a product's CAD model) in FreeCAD. Since a large part of the FreeCAD community is already familiar with the workflow of the FEM workbench (i.e., creating an analysis container, selecting a solver, defining constraints, etc.), I thought it would be beneficial to structure this assembly planning (APLAN) workbench the same way, using the same concepts (e.g., solvers, constraints). So far, its framework is greatly inspired by the FEM workbench.

Consequently, when creating both a FEM and APLAN analysis container, both analyses are activated/highlighted simultaneously. Programmatically, this makes no difference as FEM objects (solvers, constraints, materials, etc.) can only be added to an active FEM analysis container (and not to the active APLAN analysis). However, for this particular case, I thought it could create more clarity for the user if an analysis container (of any workbench) is deactivated/unhighlighted when switching to another module. Using a (slightly) personalized icon and/or a different highlight color could be an option too (as shown in the attached picture) to distinguish the analysis containers.

Best regards,
Martijn