FTP and other file-sending applications and services have become a standard in the industry. They are essential today if you want to share large files or an entire project dataset. By using Project Butterfly as your online storage service, you can open your drawings from within your Web browser, without any external software.

When we were designing Project Butterfly in the beginning, we wanted to help our users accelerate their design process. One of the biggest pain points that slow down designers’ work is struggling with different software each day, and spending time tech supporting for their colleagues or clients. We wanted to change that. We believe that designers should invest their time being creative and exploring ideas, rather than waste time trying to get a file through Outlook or worry about software version incompatibilities.

Since its launch, Project Butterfly is speeding up and simplifying workflows by allowing professionals to collaborate in different ways. Things could be better, though. Nowadays professionals still need to maintain and run unnecessary applications such as an FTP server and client.

We believe that Butterfly could be your new FTP program with a built-in DWG editor. Here are some more reasons:

• Your colleagues can view or edit your DWG drawings from within Butterfly, without downloading and keeping a copy of the drawing, and without them having to install any software.
• You can work directly on the online version of the drawing, without having to upload it every time you create a new version.
• You can share individual files or entire folders, making it easy to share a project folder in the office or with stakeholders.
• You can allow the people you’re sharing with to download the files or just view them within Butterfly.
• Your recipients don’t need to set up any account or receive credentials. They get an e-mail invitation.
• Managing permissions is Butterfly is easy and fast.
• You can revoke any permissions you granted at any time, protecting your data on demand.
• You can upload any type of file to Butterfly, and there is no storage limit.

It’s very easy to get started. Just open a new folder, import your data to it, and then click the “Share” button in the Drawings section. Watch this video we made to see how to get started with sharing:

Have you tried enriching your reviews by using the crop tool?

The crop tool allows you to send your reviewers only a part of your drawing.

Nowadays, there is no way to send a certain part of your drawing while keeping it editable and interactive. At best, you can export it to PDF or JPG.

You might also want to have your reviewer focus on a certain part or issue of your design. Another reason to use the crop tool is to hide areas of your design that are confidential, or parts that you’e just not ready to share yet.

How to crop?

1. Open a drawing you’d like to review.
2. Start a review by clicking on the “Share and Collaborate” button, and then selecting “Review”.
3. On the ribbon you will have a “Crop” button. Click on it.
4. Adjust your crop via the grabbing points and hit “Apply Crop”.

If you want to change or remove an applied crop, click again on the “Crop” button in the ribbon.

Your reviewer will only see what’s inside the crop area. The crop is identified by the gray dashed border around it, as illustrated above.

Your reviewer can’t select or modify any object that is outside the cropping area. Objects that are in the cropped area but stretch outside of it – can be modified.

We hope you’ll find this feature useful in your reviews.

Hi everyone,

We hope you had the chance to try the new version of Project Butterfly. We want to further improve the way Butterfly displays different objects and styles, and we also want to add more drawing tools to the mix.

To really answer the users’ needs we need your input on the matter. Vote in our poll and tell what you think:

Over the last weeks we’ve worked hard on improving Butterfly’s drawing and displaying abilities. We focused on enhancing display accuracy  and on the overall usability of the application, all based on user feedback.

• Butterfly can now accurately render Multiline text. In addition, text symbols (%%) are now supported.

• You can now use the layers drop-down list to change the layer of an object.

• We now support accurate drawing and rendering of AutoCAD line weights, and you can toggle it on and off.

• We’ve added display resolution matching between different users during Co-editing. Now both sides can utilize more screen area while fully maintaining the shared view of the drawing.

• We’ve added a password retrieval system. Now if you forgot your password, you can have it emailed to you.

• The crop tool has been improved, and reviews with cropped drawing  are now easier to follow. We’ll have a detailed blog post on it shortly.

All these new features and enhancements have been added because of your suggestions and requests.  Let us know which other improvements and additions you would like to see us making.