CAD Forum

matt wrote: ↑Sat Aug 07, 2021 4:38 pm Here's an old school trick:

- In Tools, Options, General, use Single Command Per Pick
- open a sketch
- draw a line, and it turns off the line command after a single line
- double click the line tool on the toolbar, and now you can draw a chain of lines.

Useless? maybe.

Lucas wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:18 pm Making a 3Dsketch from bodies:

Create the solid, put the view in Wireframe mode, Box Selection all the edges (or Ctrl+A).
Open 3Dsketch (with everything already selected) and convert entities, then Delete Body.

Is the fastest way to create 3dsketches that I know, and feels kind of hidden because you cant select the edges easily if not in that order.

berg_lauritz wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 12:40 pm @David Matula, you do know about the Promote function, don't you?

If you have a common subassembly for parts (i.e. you ALWAYS put the together some fasteners with a specific bracket/purchased part), but you don't want to show it on a BOM, you can promote this assembly and it will always dissolve on your BOM and in the drawing.

This also works with virtual assemblies.

Screenshot 2021-08-04 113900.png
Screenshot 2021-08-04 114100.png

dpihlaja wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 4:33 pm 5) In a browser, CTRL + TAB will switch between tabs (because these are actually different pages...so its like switching between different documents in Word, etc...)

Zhen-Wei Tee wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 6:37 am So this is something that i stumble by accident today...

You can actually pull the property manager "Out" from the standard tree and put it side by side to the feature tree..
It take up the some display space but i no longer need to have extra click to expand the feature tree to search for the plane or surface that i need...
image.png

Now.. if only i can find a way to pin the property manager so that it is always shown even if empty..

Zhen-Wei Tee wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 6:37 am So this is something that i stumble by accident today...

You can actually pull the property manager "Out" from the standard tree and put it side by side to the feature tree..
It take up the some display space but i no longer need to have extra click to expand the feature tree to search for the plane or surface that i need...
image.png

Now.. if only i can find a way to pin the property manager so that it is always shown even if empty..

dpihlaja wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:38 am There are some drawbacks to this. I honestly cannot recall what they were, but they were big enough that I ended up not using it anymore.

If I can remember them, I will post them here.

dpihlaja wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:38 am There are some drawbacks to this. I honestly cannot recall what they were, but they were big enough that I ended up not using it anymore.

If I can remember them, I will post them here.

mike miller wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:13 pm In my experience, the main drawback is the fact that no matter where you place it, it's either covering up something in the graphics window OR it's too far away. This drawback is greater than the pain of expanding the flyout tree IMHO.

mike miller wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:13 pm In my experience, the main drawback is the fact that no matter where you place it, it's either covering up something in the graphics window OR it's too far away. This drawback is greater than the pain of expanding the flyout tree IMHO.

bnemec wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:29 pm IIRC there's a macro that automatically expands the feature tree each time. But I cannot find it.

dpihlaja wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:38 am There are some drawbacks to this. I honestly cannot recall what they were, but they were big enough that I ended up not using it anymore.

If I can remember them, I will post them here.

• renaming items in the feature tree with F2 is more painful. If you click on the item you have to be FAST to hit F2 otherwise you have to deselect the item & re-select again & quickly hit the button. This seemed to be especially painful in drawings for me.
• The sizing of this seems to be (as are so many things) document specific. And the standard size is tiny so you have to re-size it.

berg_lauritz wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:19 pm Tried it out the whole day.

Drawbacks:

• renaming items in the feature tree with F2 is more painful. If you click on the item you have to be FAST to hit F2 otherwise you have to deselect the item & re-select again & quickly hit the button. This seemed to be especially painful in drawings for me.
• The sizing of this seems to be (as are so many things) document specific. And the standard size is tiny so you have to re-size it.

On the positive side:
It is SO MUCH MORE comfortable to work with the feature tree on the left side.... Currently I am happily accepting the drawbacks for this.

Tom G wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 12:31 pm This hardly counts as a most impressive trick. All the same, I did not make a new thread for this, and could not find a thread like, "What did you learn that you never knew before?"

Today I learned more lazy.
When entering today's date into custom properties, I typed in the month and date and left out the year by mistake. The date field auto-filled the current calendar year. This is a tiny time saver which is multiplied by the many implemented uses today.

Tom G wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 4:22 pm (Why to avoid Angle Mates: they flip orientation by themselves, so that they require attention so that your "stable fully defined" assembly remains as you intended it.)

How to avoid Angle Mates

I've figured this one out lately and it's proven itself stable so far. If and only if you desire a 45 degree angle, mate a primary plane as Symmetric between two perpendicular primary planes of an adjacent component. The order of selection matters, so that the first selected entity will be the middle item, and the other two are its "ends". This mate is able to be flipped (intentionally). The major advantage of this method over the method below is that it persists through reorientation of both of the mated components.

Furthermore, I strongly avoid Perpendicular, primarily because it cannot flip. Parallel is equally stable and yet more flexible.

the_h4mmer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 6:39 am What about using the mid-plane relation between your perpendicular primary planes for a reference plane and then adding a coincident mate? I guess it would add another feature, but wonder if it would be more advantageous or if there are hidden drawbacks.

bnemec wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:01 pm When the property manager is docked it grows in width all day, not enough that I notice it right away but when it replaces half the width of the view port I wonder when did that happen?
I sure do wish the feature manager (tree) could be docked and never move or collapse automatically, it seems that I need access to it whenever SW decides to pop it out over the viewport and collapse it. Mostly because there are many things that are easier to select in the feature manager than in the graphics area; or maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

'----------------------------------------
'
' Preconditions:		Model document is open.
'
' Postconditions:	Width of featuremanager design  tree and property manager are controlled by WidthFeat and WidthProp (default 350)
'				Property manager is docked side by side with the featuremanager (position 2)
'
'
' Notes:            When you work with the property manager side by side with the feature manager design tree
'                   sometimes the width of this window will grow over time. You can adjust the width of the feature
'                   manager design tree, but this will not chanage the width of the property manager when docked side by side.
'                   This macro first docks the property manager on the original position, then changes width and docks it side by side.
'                   After docking it will change the width of the feature manager once more, if you would like a different width of this.
'
'                   If you want to change the docking location you can chanage the number at the end of the last line.
'                   0 = original, 1 = bottom left, 2 = side by side
'
'----------------------------------------
Option Explicit

Sub main()

    Dim swApp                   As SldWorks.SldWorks
    Dim swModel                 As SldWorks.ModelDoc2
    Dim nWidth                  As Long
    Dim nRetVal                 As Long
    Dim WidthProp               As Integer
    Dim WidthFeat               As Integer
    Dim Part                    As Object
    
    Set swApp = CreateObject("SldWorks.Application")
    Set swModel = swApp.ActiveDoc
    
    Set Part = swApp.ActiveDoc
    Dim myModelView As Object
    Set myModelView = Part.ActiveView
    myModelView.FrameState = swWindowState_e.swWindowMaximized
    
    'Property manager is docked on original location, same place as feature manager design tree
    swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue swUserPreferenceIntegerValue_e.swPropertyMgrDockingState, 0
    
    'Reading old width
    nWidth = swModel.GetFeatureManagerWidth
    
    'Writing width of property manager
    WidthProp = 350
    nRetVal = swModel.SetFeatureManagerWidth(nWidth / nWidth * WidthProp)

    'docking property manager side by side with feature manager design tree (Position 2)
    swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue swUserPreferenceIntegerValue_e.swPropertyMgrDockingState, 2
    
    'Writing width of feature manager
    WidthFeat = 350
    nRetVal = swModel.SetFeatureManagerWidth(nWidth / nWidth * WidthFeat)
    
End Sub

blanke wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 3:47 am Maybe a bit late, but I encountered the same problem as you described. I've found a macro which could change the width of the feature manager design tree. The only downside was that if you have placed the property manager side by side with the feature manager, it would only change the feature manager width. So I started looking into docking the property manager with VBA and adjusted the code so that the property manager first docks to the original location, then change the width and docks it side by side again. Lastly it will change the width of the feature manager design tree once more. Because the windows are side by side, the width of the property manager will not change. There is a standard width in this code of 350 pixels for both windows which can be adjusted to your preference independently.

Macro code:

Code: Select all

'----------------------------------------
'
' Preconditions:    Model document is open.
'
' Postconditions:   Width of featuremanager design  tree and property manager is controlled by myWidth (default 350)
'                   Property manager is docked side by side with the featuremanager (position 2)
'
'
' Notes:            When you work with the property manager side by side with the feature manager design tree
'                   sometimes the width of this window will grow over time. You can adjust the width of the feature
'                   manager design tree, but this will not chanage the width of the property manager when docked side by side.
'                   This macro first docks the property manager on the original position, then changes width and docks it side by side.
'                   After docking it will change the width of the feature manager once more, if you would like a different width of this.
'
'                   If you want to change the docking location you can chanage the number at the end of the last line.
'                   0 = original, 1 = bottom left, 2 = side by side
'
'----------------------------------------
Option Explicit

Sub main()

    Dim swApp                   As SldWorks.SldWorks
    Dim swModel                 As SldWorks.ModelDoc2
    Dim nWidth                  As Long
    Dim nRetVal                 As Long
    Dim WidthProp               As Integer
    Dim WidthFeat               As Integer
    Dim Part                    As Object
    
    Set swApp = CreateObject("SldWorks.Application")
    Set swModel = swApp.ActiveDoc
    
    Set Part = swApp.ActiveDoc
    Dim myModelView As Object
    Set myModelView = Part.ActiveView
    myModelView.FrameState = swWindowState_e.swWindowMaximized
    
    'Property manager is docked on original location, same place as feature manager design tree
    swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue swUserPreferenceIntegerValue_e.swPropertyMgrDockingState, 0
    
    'Reading old width
    nWidth = swModel.GetFeatureManagerWidth
    
    'Writing width of property manager
    WidthProp = 350
    nRetVal = swModel.SetFeatureManagerWidth(nWidth / nWidth * WidthProp)

    'docking property manager side by side with feature manager design tree (Position 2)
    swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue swUserPreferenceIntegerValue_e.swPropertyMgrDockingState, 2
    
    'Writing width of feature manager
    WidthFeat = 350
    nRetVal = swModel.SetFeatureManagerWidth(nWidth / nWidth * WidthFeat)
    
End Sub

azreal1031 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:27 pm you can double click a face in a part or an assembly, and it'll show all the driving dimensions.

azreal1031 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:27 pm Over the past few months I find myself coming back to this thread over and over again. There's just too much knowledge here to pass up! On a related note, you can double click a face in a part or an assembly, and it'll show all the driving dimensions. I don't know how fast you are with the measure tool, but this has came in handy quite a few times for a quick reference.

On another note, double clicking a feature just selects the whole part.

Jaylin Hochstetler wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:21 am FYI, if you click on one of the dimension you can change it.

Harris wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 7:47 am Here's a GIF of a really fast way to add intersection relations!Intersection.gif

azreal1031 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 8:03 am It just keeps getting better.

Jaylin Hochstetler wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:21 am FYI, if you click on one of the dimension you can change it.

I sometimes get tripped up by right-clicking the relation, which doesn't work. To be clear, you have to right-click a sketch element in the pattern, not the pattern relation icon.

Dwight

berg_lauritz wrote: ↑Fri Jun 03, 2022 10:57 am Right clicking a sketch pattern gives you the option to edit it:

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:09 pm I found a trick a while ago that I've used a few times. . .

If someone unfamiliar with this opens the drawing later they might have a lot of fun figuring out what's going on. That's just a bonus.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:09 pm I found a trick a while ago that I've used a few times. I know we can only break extension leaders around other dimensions, but I figured out a way to get it done if I need to break them around other leaders (notes, weld symbols, etc). I place the other annotation, then add a dimension that I really don't need, with it's extension line crossing the extension line of the one I want to break, at the location I want it to break.

JSculley wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:00 am I would argue that there is always a solution that doesn't require this, requires less work and doesn't evoke hatred in future generations.

Also, I hate your drawings. Nothing personal. They just rub me the wrong way. Mixed case and periods at the end of annotations? I need eye bleach.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:52 am [...] And I hate all caps. It always looks like shouting. [...]

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:52 am That's fair. I don't always use periods, unless the note is a complete sentence.
in 13 years I haven't received any complaints about it from clients or suppliers.

By the way, I dimension to hidden lines also. I'd like to see how the people who made that rule would show rebar placement in concrete.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:52 am And I hate all caps. It always looks like shouting.
By the way, I dimension to hidden lines also. I'd like to see how the people who made that rule would show rebar placement in concrete.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:26 am Not mine, but @Alin's.