Simplify setting element attributes after drawing
complete
Jim R.
A feature to allow the user to define default element values such as pipe diameter when creating a new model would be helpful. Right now, in US unit system of measurement for the software, the default pipe diameter value is set at 12-inches. Much more common pipe diameters are either 6 or 8 inches. It would speed up setting up/drawing a new model by allowing the user to set the defaulit value to 6 or 8 rather than drawing everything in as 12 and then going to each pipe to change 12 to the more common value.
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Luke Butler
marked this post as
complete
We've made a couple of changes to improve the experience when drawing pipes and other assets.
Firstly, when you create an asset, it is now automatically selected. Previously, new assets were not selected by default, so you had to click them before you could access the asset panel to update their data. This new behavior should speed things up, especially for one-off assets like tanks and PRVs.
Secondly, for pipes, we’ve added a floating toolbar at the bottom of the map that lets you set the default diameter and roughness values before you draw. This wasn’t possible before, so you no longer need to draw a pipe and then update its properties afterward.
We hope both of these improvements make it much more pleasant to draw and update your network in epanet-js!
Luke Butler
marked this post as
in progress
We’re working on this right now!
Luke Butler
A quick update on this request:
We’re changing how element creation works to address this problem.
The plan is that when you create a new element, it will be automatically selected after drawing. This makes it much easier to access and adjust its attributes. For one-off assets like pumps, tanks, and valves, we think this will be a big help.
For pipes we know you want to set it for multiple assets. So once you change a value (like diameter), the next element you draw will use that same value. This should make setting up and drawing multiple pipe segments faster and more intuitive.
Jim R.
Awesome. You folks are doing some really nice work. I am excited to see where you take EPANet-JS.
Luke Butler
marked this post as
planned
Luke Butler
Thanks for the great suggestion, Jim - we completely agree! We’re planning to add this based on your feedback.
We will make it so when you select a drawing tool (like Pipe or Junction), you’ll be able to input default attributes such as diameter or roughness before you start drawing. We will have this in the side panel where you normally see the tutorial.
We’ve had a number of users request this recently, so we’ll move forward with soon. I will promoted this to “Planned,” and you should start to see progress on it shortly. Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback!