Experimental Features in BricsCAD

Quick answer: Experimental Features is where BricsCAD centralises new commands, panels, and dialogs still being developed, giving you early access in exchange for potential bugs and no guarantee they’ll stick around unchanged. It’s disabled by default. Enabling or disabling it always requires restarting BricsCAD.

What Happens With It Off vs On

With Experimental mode off, the experimental features still exist in BricsCAD, they just don’t work. Trying to run one shows a message telling you it’s disabled; for example, running WORKPLANEACTIVATE without Experimental mode on returns a message that Work Plane is an experimental feature that isn’t currently enabled.

With it on, those features become fully usable, and using them is also how Bricsys gathers feedback to help decide their final direction before a full release.

How to Enable Experimental Mode

Any of these:

• Turn it on in the Experimental new features module on the Start page.
• Set the EXPERIMENTALMODE system variable to on.
• Run MANAGEEXPERIMENTALFEATURES and click Enable in the dialog.

Either way, you’ll need to restart BricsCAD for the change to take effect.

What’s Currently Experimental

As of V26, this includes:

• Dynamic Block editing: creating and editing Dynamic Block definitions specifically requires Experimental mode.
• BMSEQUENCE: creates and edits sequences for assembly design.
• PARAMETRICOFFSET / PARAMETRICOFFSETEDIT: defines and edits offset operations on parametric block curves.
• Work Planes (WORKPLANEACTIVATE, WORKPLANECREATE, WORKPLANEHIDE, WORKPLANELINK, WORKPLANEUNLINK): create, activate, hide, and link or unlink 2D entities to a Work Plane.

Which features are experimental changes from version to version as things graduate to full release or get removed.

Things Worth Knowing Before You Enable It

• You may hit bugs or performance issues; Bricsys actively wants that feedback reported.
• Experimental features can change significantly or disappear entirely in future versions, don’t build critical workflows around them.
• Turning it on or off always requires a restart.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are experimental features completely hidden when Experimental mode is off? No, the commands exist, but running one just shows a message saying it’s disabled instead of doing anything.

Do I need to restart BricsCAD after enabling Experimental mode? Yes, every time, whether you’re turning it on or off.

Is Dynamic Block editing an experimental feature? Creating and editing Dynamic Block definitions specifically requires Experimental mode. Using existing Dynamic Blocks doesn’t.

Should I report bugs I find in experimental features? Yes, Bricsys explicitly encourages this, since feedback is part of how these features get refined before a full release.