Introduction
If you are using SOLIDWORKS above 2008 SolidWorks introduced the Shortcut Toolbar – a context sensitive toolbar that can be very useful and save time when designing in SolidWorks. This toolbar is activated by pressing the “S” key on your keyboard.
The Shortcut Toolbar has two user friendly characteristic:
(I) When we press “S” button it appears directly near to the mouse cursor, avoid the need to move the mouse across the screen.
(II) It is context sensitive, meaning that you can have different commands or feature toolbar customized for use in the sketch, part, assembly, and drawing environment.
(III) Essentially this gives you four completely unique versions of this toolbar, depending on what you are doing in SolidWorks at respective environment.
(IV) By default, each of these toolbar versions has several of the most obvious tools (sketch tools for the sketch environment, features for the part environment, assembly and drawing environment.)
To customize the SolidWorks Shortcut Toolbar: (*Click to know more about short cuts key)
- Open SOLIDWORKS Part or Create New
- Edit or begin a sketch
- Press the “S” key to activate the Shortcut Toolbar
- Right-click the toolbar and select Customize
- On the Commands tab of the Customize menu, find the specific tools/icons you wish to add to the toolbar
- Drag and drop any individual icons directly onto the Shortcut Toolbar
- Drag the toolbar edges to resize/reshape if required
- Click OK when done editing the toolbar
Gesture Wheel:
This 4, 8 or 12 icon gesture wheel allows you to quickly access more commands at the exact location of your cursor.
** Kindly note 12 mouse gesture is available above SOLIDWORKS 2018
Just need to right click and hold, barely move your mouse to activate the Gesture Wheel and drag in the direction of the desired command. Then you can let up on your right mouse button. This is also customizable.
Customized Mouse Gesture:
To customize and switch from 4 to 12 gestures go to the pull down menu Tools > Customize, then select the Mouse Gestures tab.
The process for customising mouse gestures has also been improved; there is still a table which can still be filtered by category…
Searched for the specific command you are interested in including within your mouse gestures:
If you haven’t given mouse gestures a try, we whole recommend you do – they’re a great productivity aid.
Saving and Restoring Mouse Gestures
The Copy Settings Wizard lets you save and restore mouse gestures independently of system options.
To save mouse gestures:
- Click Tools > Save/Restore Settings.
- In the SOLIDWORKS Copy Settings Wizard, select Save Settings and click Next.
- On the Save Settings to file screen, select the location and name for the settings file.
- Click Mouse Gestures and click Finish.
To restore mouse gestures:
- Click Tools > Save/Restore Settings.
- In the SOLIDWORKS Copy Settings Wizard, select Restore Settings and click
- On the Restore Settings from File screen, select the settings file to restore.
- Click Mouse Gestures and click Next.
- Click Finish.
For more details contact: – +91- 97301 40885
CEO | CAD Infield Technologies | Best Cad Cam Training Center
Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert & CAE Professional
aatmling@cadinfield.com