SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Chapter 18: Working with Library Features

With the features selected, click File, click Save As, and under Files of Type drop-down list, select

the *.sldlfp file type. Browse to the Design Library folder and save the part. Figure 18.10 shows

the FeatureManager of the finished library feature.

FIGURE 18.10

The finished library feature part

Display of the Library Feature icon

During the Save As process, a new folder was added to the Design Library named Bosses, as shown

in Figure 18.10. Notice the new icon for the library feature in the lower window. You may notice

that some of the default library features saved in the Design Library have a bluish background. This

occurs because of the SolidWorks viewport background color, which you can set by choosing

Tools ➪ Options ➪ Colors. Even if you never see that color because you are using a gradient back-

ground or a scene, SolidWorks still uses the color specified by that setting as the background when

saving thumbnails and previews. I always set this color to white for this reason, so that document

backgrounds in previews do not have the blue color.

You may want to orient and zoom the library feature before saving it so that it displays clearly in

the panel. One of the techniques that I like to use is to make the base feature a different color than

the library feature itself; this helps you to more easily determine what is the geometry that will be

transferred and what is just dummy material.

Tip
Figure 18.11 shows various settings for displaying the icons in the Design Library. Which one you select will
depend on your screen resolution, the number of icons that you want to display, and the quality of the preview
images. n