Well, we knew it was coming. Back in October, Fusion announced that they would begin implementing a 10 document limit for the Personal Use license. This was in addition to other changes they were implementing to better distinguish between the free license and the paid commercial license. Long story short, people were abusing the free license and Autodesk needed a way of discouraging this without heavily punishing hobbyists.
Naturally, this made a lot of people nervous. Most of the changes were quickly implemented and for the most part (after the ability to export STEP files was re-instituted) most hobbyists were ok with the changes.
However, one big question lingered. How was Fusion 360 going to implement the 10 active document limit? We finally have an answer. Watch the video above for the full demo but I'll also give a summary below.
The first item I want to clarify is that you can still create an unlimited amount of designs. You'll simply need to designate 10 of these as active in order to be allowed to modify them.
Ok, now that that's clear, let's start with a quick definition.
What counts as a Document? In order for a document to count towards your allowed 10, it has to be either a Fusion 360 design, Fusion Drawing, or a Fusion 2D PCB. Images, PDFs, and anything else stored within your project folder will not count towards your limit.
Fusion added two new features to the UI to allow you to easily keep track of your available editable document status. You'll notice that a Document Tracker has been added to the upper right and left side of your screen. Each time you enable a document as "editable" the number will increase.
In addition to the Document tracker we now have a folder called "My Editable Documents". You'll find this right under your "My Recent Data" folder. All your editable documents, no matter their location will also be listed here. It's a super quick and convenient way to see and manage your editable documents.
Each document will also have a little drop down option to quickly allow you to toggle between Read-Only and Editable.
I gotta say, I'm relieved at how this has been implemented. I was a bit worried that this was going to make it a bit of a chore to keep track of editable vs read-only documents but they've made it quite painless and easy to do. I don't see it being an issue at all for hobbyists.
My big aha! moment with Fusion 360 happened when I finally understood how to use Constraints. Get my free Fusion 360 Constraint Cheat Sheet and see what I mean.
Comments