Chapter 2: Navigating the SolidWorks Interface
Note
Be careful not to confuse this Customize Menu selection with the Customize menu selection on the Tools
menu. Figure 2.21 shows the Tools menu being customized. In addition, I do not recommend removing items
from the menus. It doesn’t take much for someone to need one of those items and no one remembers that it
was supposed to be there or how to get it back.The Options dialog box (Tools ➪ Customize ➪ Options), shown in Figure 2.20, contains the
Shortcut (RMB) menu and Menu customization options. These options enable you to show all the
menu items for both types of menus in a single stroke. By default, some items are hidden in vari-
ous menus. Keyboard customization is discussed later in this chapter. Keyboard shortcuts are gen-
erally referred to as hotkeys.Changing cursors
SolidWorks cursors are context sensitive, and change their appearance and function depending
on the situation. Sketching cursors display a pencil and the type of sketch entity that you are
presently sketching. Sketch cursors also display some dimensional information about the entity
that you are sketching, such as its length or radius. Sketch cursor feedback is necessary for
fast and accurate sketching.Between the SolidWorks and Microsoft interfaces, the word shortcut is used in several overlapping and
confusing ways. Users replace most of the SolidWorks occurrences with words they use every day. The
following list describes where SolidWorks and Microsoft users might encounter the word shortcut as a
formal name for interface functionality, and how they might translate it.l (^) The Windows Shortcut link to another file or folder. Most users still refer to this link as a
shortcut or desktop shortcut.
l (^) Shortcuts (as identified in the Help Index under Shortcut ➪ Keys) are either accelerator keys or
keyboard shortcuts. Users refer to accelerator keys as Alt-keys, and to keyboard shortcuts as
hotkeys.
l (^) SolidWorks shortcut menus are commonly called the right mouse button (RMB) menus, and
have detached toolbars called context bars for both right- and left-click options. These are
commonly known as the RMB bar and the LMB bar.
l (^) Shortcut Tabs (found as the “shortcut” entry in the SolidWorks Help Index). This presumably
refers to DriveWorksXpress functionality, although there is no direct mention of that in the
Help entry. DriveWorksXpress is beyond the scope of this book.
l (^) Shortcut Bars are commonly known as the S key toolbar.
If you use the alternate terminology offered here, it will be clear to all users what you are talking about.
Interpreting SolidWorks use of
the word “shortcut”