Hello,
The feature I would like to request is to facilitate project collaboration for anyone who uses DWG drawings in their daily life.
So, I would like to see a feature that allows me to connect to an existing FTP, select a folder on that server and then auto-detect the files and give them a starting version.
Also, a DWG preview would be nice (like a jpg preview).

I know this may be a complicated feature to implement but it would also attract the attention of architects and engineers like myself.

Great software by the way!

While I would welcome such a feature I feel compelled to inform you that this will not happen in our lifetime.

• Basecamp is a cross platform application. AutoCAD dwgs (at present) are a Windows centric document.
• There are few Basecamp clients using it to manage CADD projects. While I’m heavily involved in CADD I use it to manage CADD programming projects, not CADD projects in the context I believe your speaking (ala Buzzsaw). i.e. There’s insufficient demand to warrant the efforts.
• Document versioning and specialized FTP as you’ve specified above is outside 37S (lightweight) philosophy if I may be so bold as to peer into their crystal ball.

In short I think Basecamp is great to manage issues and support for CADD projects (team leads, programmers et al), but not to play host to gobs of project files and associated versioning, complete with xref intel / awareness yada. For that I think it better to go with a product built from the ground up to deal with these aspects of CADD project / file management; something like Buzzsaw or an adaption of Synergis-Adept.

To close …. Enjoy Basecamp for what it is, and can do now, not what you envision it to be. Future versions of the service won’t stray far from its current feature set (history suggests). That’s not an entirely bad thing (while acknowledging there are things that have been missing for years that have yet to come to fruition { grrr } but that’s another thread).

FWIW … The rambling thoughts of this CADD Programmer and Basecamp user of MANY (for Andrew) years.

Michael.

What I meant by versioning is very similar to what is already there, only why an FTP import feature.
By the way, DWG are on the mac now, most programs (like ArchiCAD) can import and export to DWG.

Sorry Wize, guess my brain has been polluted by Gatesware.

HAHA, ya, me too. I’m not looking for a complicated thing like Buzzsaw. I’m a Mac user and I swear by Mac. I also like the 37 S philosophy of keeping things simple, so the features should be very basic: one version number (like it already is), auto-detect existing FTP files in a given folder and assign a version. That’s all I’d need to use it on an already running FTP full of file, not only DWGs.
The DWG preview would be nice but I see it as a goodie and not really necessary.

PS. Sorry if I hyped you up by giving the impression that I wanted to Gatesilize Basecamp ;)

Hope you find a solution that’s a good fit Wize—if / when you do share it with the rest of the class.

=)

Guess I’ll have to learn Ruby on Rails and implement my own ;)
I’ll post it here when it’s done.