Drawing Symbol Interface (UI) Improvement functionality list for PTC

The finished product of Symbols are powerful and extraordinarily useful.  However the creation of them is horrible, painful, and stuck in 1989-ish coding!  In addition some improvements can be made to the finished product too. 

This is a WIKI type Document so please edit this document in order to add more functionality that you would like to see added to the creation and finished product of Drawing Symbols!   Comments also welcome below.

1.   Grouping:
   1. Ideally a graphical drag/drop and copy/paste interface with ability to reorder up and down. Similar in some ways to the ribbon interface, though that cannot reuse groupings.
      1. Rename groups
      2. Re-order the groups
      3. Re-use the groups under different group headings (copy and paste while keeping all group content and relations
   2. More functionality than just radio or check boxes.
      1. Radio buttons: Ability to specify the default configuration besides just being the first in the list.
      2. Check boxes: Ability to specify the default configuration (currently none checked is the default and is unchangeable).  For example, what if I want the default to have 3 out of 5 checkboxes checked?  Or even all the checkboxes checked by default? Why can’t I do this?
2. Ability to edit/tweek the .sym file, such as to manipulate groupings or for other changes (similar to how we can for the config.pro for mapkeys and settings).  Currently this file is both nearly impossible to read and as soon as you edit it it breaks the symbol (even when just changing the name of a group!)
3. Parameters: Undo/Redo ability.Currently NOTHING can be undone within the symbol interface.  This is even less than the little that the rest of Creo can actually do.
   1. Currently you can input a parameter but it is not recognized until after you save and exit. Therefore if you have to put other geometry around it there is no way to do that within the interface.
4. Consistent UI to the rest of Creo (and doesn’t get saved to config.win and corrupt the new creo_parametric_customization.ui file)
5. Symbols recognized as text on a drawing and exported as such.
6. Relative fixed Text during rotation.  This might be challenging to fix.  Currently you can specify text to always remain vertical, but it is locked in the position produces unpredictable and practically useless results as it will often cause overlap with other geometry or end up far away from the object. Ideally it would be fixed in its position with respect to how it is rotated while also remaining vertical.  Perhaps the creator could define this (without having to do a new group for everything.)
7. Allow grouping within the symbol to keep logical entities from being broken up and allow easier dragging and dropping.
8. Functioning symbols inside of symbols.  This is mainly to allow for groupings.  This way a symbol with complex grouping could be broken up into several less complicated ones, similar to how it is recommended to break long mapkeys up into several shorter ones.
   1. Also be able to insert symbols within symbols and keep all the options there.
   2. Allow user to create an element library that can be graphically seen and placed while inside the symbol interface.
9. Reuse Groups from Other symbols:For example, select a symbol from your library and insert the entire symbol and structure inside the symbol.  This is similar to symbols inside of groups (as suggested above), except should have an option to be independent of the parent symbol.  I may want just the grouping structure without the entities and then I will add my own entities to it.
10. Attributes that update and display while in the symbol interface rather than only updating outside of the symbol.
11. Set up to sketch:Everything in the symbol sketcher is…well…sketched, therefore it should be well set up to sketch.  I have found that using a mapkey can turn many needed settings on to make it easy to sketch, however not all of them can be set to on consistently (such as chain linking).  This is more for all of Creo but is very important in this module since everything is sketched!
12. Dimensions in symbols
13. Symbol export/import to be more seamlesswhile giving the user control of how it overwrites existing drawing symbols with that name (such as iterate or override)
    Drawing Symbols: Override vs Copy

14. Add and removed entities from groups without a million clicks (approximately)

15. Stable and controllable Symbol Placements

    • Drawing Default Symbol Placement Type

16. Toggle through and choose constraints using RMB similar to how it is done in sketcher mode.

    • In sketcher mode if you want to constrain to a horizontal reference, as soon as that constraint shows up you can RMB to lock it in place, or RMB again to not choose that constraint and make sure that it doesn't get in the way.

    •  

17.  

      Nice to have: 

1. It would also be nice to be able toforce resize in increments.  For example scaling the symbol is done as infinitely variable, but lets say I want to allow scaling based off of incremental values such as 1.25mm at a time (based off of 1.25 mm grid that it was created off of…which is part of the ISO standard for symbol creation)
2. Connection tolibraries of symbols, even if it is just to websites that offer the libraries to Creo users, like your parts reuse section in Creo.
3. Construction geometry
4. Ability to create 'snap' or anchor points or entities - such that the user could choose that leader lines would emanate and connect to such points / entities.  Currently, I think you can have the symbol have a type of leader that is attached to a circle within a symbol; expand on this.

      General Product Idea for Improving/updating Symbol UI & Functionality: 

1. Update define drawing symbol user interface   (1795)
2. Update the Symbol Sketcher     (5590)
3. symbol creation - insert image in symbol       (1225)
4. Symbols creation and editing new User interface.   (1620)