Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts
Once you are finished, you can toggle back and forth between the configs by double-clicking each
of the configs in the ConfigurationManager. Although this is simple, if you forget to change the
drop-down list from the All Configurations setting to either the This Configuration or the Specify
Configurations setting, then you apply the change to all of the configurations. This shows that
building a configuration manually is fine for a few simple changes, but it can become unwieldy if
you are changing more than a few dimensions in this way. You would then have to remember
which dimensions were changed to what. As you can see, using design tables is a better method for
multiple dimensions.Controlling suppression
Suppressing a feature is just like turning it off; the feature appears as grayed-out text in the
FeatureManager. With configurations, you can suppress a feature in one config and unsuppress it
in another. When dealing with manual configuration techniques, there are two methods for con-
trolling suppression: manually suppressing features and creating configurations with the appropri-
ate options for the inclusion of new features, which I discussed previously in this chapter.
In addition to the Suppress toolbar button, you can also use the Unsuppress and Unsuppress but-
tons with Dependents functions. When you suppress a feature, any feature that is dependent on it
is also suppressed. If you then use the Unsuppress feature, it unsuppresses only the feature itself.
However, Unsuppress with Dependents brings back all the dependent features, as well.Performance
Suppressing complex features is a great way to improve performance. Experienced users often create a configu-
ration of a part that they use as a simplified config, where patterns, fillets, and extruded text features are sup-
pressed. This becomes more important as you start working with assemblies. For reasons I discuss in the
assemblies chapters, it can be a great advantage to make a configuration for each part called “simplified.” You
can make a second configuration in template files so that new parts and assemblies automatically have this
built in to them. n
Generally, SolidWorks users employ a combination of these methods, mainly because configura-
tions are not usually started on a complete model; they are often added when the model is still in
progress, and so features are added after the users create the configurations.On the left side of Figure 10.15, you can see a feature that is alternately unsuppressed and sup-
pressed in the tree. The text and icon for the suppressed feature are grayed out. You can suppress
features from the RMB menu on the feature, from the Edit menu, or through a tool on a toolbar.
The Suppress button is not on a toolbar by default, but you can find it in the Commands dialog
box (Tools ➪ Customize ➪ Commands), along with the other buttons for the Features toolbar. Only
the Edit menu offers the options of Unsuppress With Dependents and This Configuration ➪ All
Configurations ➪ Specify Configurations options for each of the Suppress, Unsuppress, Unsuppress
With Dependents functions.Using Unsuppress With Dependents can save you a lot of time or the hassle of looking for all the
features dependent upon a feature that has been suppressed. Because it is not available on the RMB
menus, this function is used less than it might otherwise be.