Michael Lord

From my very first look at SolidWorks 2014 what has impressed me most (and continues to do so) has been the “day to day”reduction of mouse clicks and reduced mouse movement.   Much of this has been achieved by being able to access many more features via the Context Toolbar.

I said early on that I thought accessing Configurations (& Standard Mates) from the Context Tool bar was (were) one of my favorite enhancement.    Now I’ve found another one in a similar vein!  The ability to be able to Toggle between Ridge and Flexible states for Sub-Assemblies.  It’s now just a matter of Right Button Mouse the Sub-Assembly, selecting the sub-assembly icon to Toggle between – Make Sub-Assembly Flexible or Make Sub-Assembly Ridge

One more little discovery to save time (and embarrassment) !  This is one for all those who work in Assemblies and use in-context sketches.   No matter how many times you have used in-context sketches, you first need to Select > Edited a Part,  (in the Assembly) and then added a Sketch,   Every now and then you just select the face and add the sketch, right!     You then go about selecting edges, etc only to discover at the end there is no SKETCH on the PART ……  but there it is, you find the sketch lurking at the bottom of your assembly tree! (we have all done it, don’t try to deny it).

I have to say that I haven’t done that for quite a while, that is of course,  until the first time I needed to use it with SolidWorks 2014!  (Funny right!)  At least now you get the following :  Warning  Assembly Context Sketch Notification.  Warning: You have started a sketch within the context of this Assembly, rather than in a part or Sub-Assembly.   Nice, a polite gentle reminder.  (Something you wouldn’t get from your workmates looking over your shoulder)

So there’s just a couple more of the simple enhancements you now have with SolidWorks 2014!