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Solid works ui tips and tricks
- 1. SolidWorks User Interface Tips TriMech Solutions Michael Jolley – Applications Engineer Getting it done, smoother.
- 2. UI History
- 3. 2013 Interface Elements Toolbars Shortcut Toolbar Motion Manager Heads-Up View Toolbar Task Pane In-Context Toolbars Recent Commands List MacrosKeyboard Shortcuts Menu Bar Command Manager Search Bars Tear-away Toolbars Right-Click Menus Xpert Selection SetsIcons Status Bar Units Selector Errors/Warnings Mouse Gestures Freeze Bar Rollback Bar Instant 3D
- 4. Why Bother? • Make it yours • “I wanna go fast!” • Quit hunting around • Impress your coworkers
- 5. What Can We Change? • System Options • Right Click Menu • Mouse Gestures • Command Manager • Et al
- 6. System Options • Search Options • Enable Freeze Bar • Customer Experience Improvement Program • Tangent Edge Display – models vs. drawings • Automatically Hide Components on View Creation • Use Specified Colors When Editing… • Ghost Image on Drag • No Preview During Open • Large Assembly Mode Trigger • Don’t Prompt to Save Read-Only…
- 7. System Options • Default Templates • Intentionally Map File Locations • FM Arrow Key Navigation • Auto-Recover • Toolbox in Common Location • File Explorer Samples with Shortcuts • Search – Disable it if you don’t use it • Check if Read-Only Items Have Changed • Show Errors Every Rebuild
- 8. Right Click Menu • Customize Menu o Open Drawing o Replace Components • Context Toolbar • Rotate About Scene Floor • Live Section View • Isolate
- 9. Mouse Gestures • Seriously, set these up
- 10. Command Manager • Docking o Drag or double click • Change the look • Disable and Change The Look
- 11. Other Stuff • Pin the menu • Floating Toolbar • S key • Command Search • View Selector
- 12. More Other Stuff • Select Other • Assemblies – Tab/Shift Tab to hide/show • Window Select
- 13. TriMech Favorites 6. Automatically hide components on view creation. 7. Enable selection through transparency 8. Selection of hidden edges 9. Default templates 10. Don’t prompt to save read-only referenced documents (discard changes)
- 14. TriMech Favorites 1. Use software OpenGL. Seriously! 2. Use Large Assembly Mode 3. Save auto-recover information every X minutes. 4. Messages/Errors/Warnings 5. File, Locations (ALL of them)
- 15. SolidWorks User Interface Tips TriMech Solutions Michael Jolley – Applications Engineer Getting it done, smoother.
Editor's Notes
- I apologize for the lack of notes on this slideshow. I have tried to apply a few notes to at least give you the idea of where I was going. Enjoy.
- Progression of interface:2001: Toolbars that could be resized. Started to allow for customizations to menus and toolbars. No fly-out menus. No Task Pane!2005: RealView Graphics. More customization. Updated Icons. Appearances2007: Not much changed. SolidWorks Search. View selector in bottom left. Better Task Pane Integration. Appearances2008: UI Overhaul – Mimics what Microsfot is doing with its Office products. Ribbon-based Command manager. Tabular FM tree. Collapsable menus. Easier to customize menus, toolbars and right-click menus. Smart FM tree. Heads-Up View Toolbar. Instant 3D. In-Context Menus. Motion Manager interface. Appearances.2012: Shortcut Toolbar, Options Selector. More reliance on Task Pane (Costing, Sim Xpress, DWX Xpress) Command Search, Cleaner Interface. Appearances. Mouse Gestures. Actual dual-monitor support.2013: More of the same. Cleaner interface. Advanced visualization modes. Tools, options Search.Progression to make tools more easily accessible and easier to customize. Will almost certainly continue especially as touch technologies become more prevalent.
- In SW 2013, there are many parts of the interface which we can choose to use, modify, or completely ignore.
- If you leave the software as it was out of the box, do not be surprised if it isn’t organized for the way you work.Just make sure you at least customize things before you go ballistic and start smashing your computer with a baseball bat.
- We’re going to focus on configuring a few of these items to make them work for us.
- I’ve picked one item from (almost) each tab in the system options. Search Options is a favorite of mine.
- More options I recommend you read up on.
- The right click menu can be customized to only include the items you use most. You can still get to the other items, so get those rarely used items off the screen.I’ve also listed a few items that you may have not tried before.Isolate is just cool, so make sure you give it a try.
- I visit clients all the time that do not use Mouse Gestures. We’ll look at how to set them up and then just make sure you use them.
- Okay, not everyone likes the Command Manager. So, turn it off, or modify it to suit your needs. If you absolutely hate it, just undock it, collapse it, and then you can still get to it when you do want to use it.
- Like the menu? Pin it so it’s always on the screen, as long as your monitor has the space.Floating toolbar, heads up toolbar, whatever it’s called, it gets modified just like the other toolbars (via Tools, Customize).You can click in the Command Search to help find those commands that you know exist, but you just can’t remember where. Of course, you can also use this area to search for other items if you use the drop down. The View Selector was added to 2013. You can select on the faces of the bounding box to switch to specific views.
- Select Other is an old favorite way to hide faces and select through to hidden faces or edges.Or, if you want to hide an entire component, you can use the tab key to hide and shift-tab to show components.A left to right selection is an inclusive selection, while a right to left selection is a crossing selection. This works in sketches all the way to assembly components.
- Just a recap of some of our favorites. Compliments to Kevin Zich of TriMech for making this top ten list.
- 5. So important to be sharing information across your entire design group.4. Did you say “Don’t tell me.” Turn those messages back on.3. SolidWorks shouldn’t be crashing much but please protect yourself.2. Huge performance benefit.1. Often misunderstood. Can improve performance but most often used during troubleshooting.
- Thanks for watching. Now, go set up your user interface!