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The launch of SolidWorks 2008 is quickly approaching and even though you may just be getting use to some things in 2007, the new version has some features that could bring you to the edge of your seat. If you’ve seen the preview demo, the new interface may be the first thing that stands out, but the focus on functionality and how you design makes this new version all the more interesting.
Over the next few days, we’re going to plunge into the depths that are SolidWorks 2008. We’re going to go over the major functionality shift in the new version of SolidWorks and show you how you’re going to be doing more of your work on the screen with less lag. This is gonna be the meat. I’ll save the What’s New for you to look at, you can download that right here.
Today we’re gonna look at
THE INTERFACE
This, in any program for some reason, is usually a big complaint when it changes. I’m just gonna say it. It’s better. Take 30 minutes to play with it and you’ll like it. Here’s why…
- More room on the screen
- Less moving around
- Find stuff faster
- Improved graphics
More room on the screen
We love lots of room. The more, the better. With these three enhancements you’ve got what you need.
- Flyout Menu Bar
This is brilliant. You know the top bar where it usually just say SolidWorks, yeah, those 15,000 pixels are precious real estate, so the standard toolbar has been moved up there and the menu bar flys out over it. Don’t worry, it can be pinned down so you’re able to adapt to your new environment. You can also add commands to that standard toolbar. I would suggest adding commands you usually have there or a new one. I’ve added a Selection flyout menu and Colors. - Custom Toolbars
The command Manager now has tabs. You can add a custom tab. I now have all my toolbar commands on one row with the most commonly used in the middle. This has completely eliminated an entire row from my screen. - Heads-up display toolbar
This was the hardest to get use to. All the toolbar commands that have to do with display are now in a transparent menu in the viewport. This is handy, because it will appear in each viewport. The only thing I don’t like about this, is that its not customizable…yet.
Less moving around
We really hate having to move from toolbar to menu, to FeatureManager, to display and all in between. Anything that keeps me in the display and on the models makes the process go faster. There are two main things that make this happen.
- Context Menus
Again, brilliant, and again, takes a little getting use to. When you left click something in the viewport or FeatureManager Tree a visual context menu of typical actions pops up. Again, don’t worry, the right click context is still there, but once you get use to the new one you’ll be flying through your model. - Shortcut Bar
If you don’t have S set up as a keyboard shortcut, you can press that in the graphics area and get a customizable shortcut bar. It’s contextual too, so when your in a sketch and hit S sketch commands come up. You could feasibly set this up to where you are always working in the graphics area.
Find stuff faster
There are four things that really, really improve this.
- Search your features
There’s now a search bar above the FeatureManager Tree. It’s dynamic. Right when you start typing, it starts searching. It goes deep too, down to the sketches and material if you have it set. You can also make it filter whatever you type in. Ine - Dissect Parts
If you use the search that is now located up on the menu bar, you’ll find that it searches your assemblies, your parts, features within those parts, and sketches within those parts. You can drag and add any of them into what you’re working on, like that feature of that fancy slot you put in that one part way back on that other project. - Tags
What the heck are tags? They’re used a lot online these days. Like on Flickr. Think of them as keywords. You can put them on features or documents. I’m not sure how quick this will catch on. Most people I know don’t know of this type of organization. Still, once it’s used it becomes extremely useful to find things that would normally be hidden in obscurity. - Browse Documents
When you use Ctrl-Tab to switch documents you now get a visual of all the documents open so you can switch to the one you want. This is great when you working in lots of documents or just want to avoid that 50MB drawing for a bit.
Improved graphics
While this really doesn’t help with overall functionality in my opinion, I didn’t want to ignore that there are some great improvements. This is gonna be more useful if you’re working with visualization like PhotoWorks. However, I did find that some of the new RealView settings were extremely helpful, particularly the ‘lightcard’ setting. This creates a glow around a selection and makes it easier to see what’s selected. This is really great when working in top down assemblies and large parts. The RealView options are added to the heads-ups toolbar so switching scenes and toggling it on and off are super easy.
Conclusion
The interface enhancements alone make SolidWorks 2008 a definite reason to look into upgrading. When I first saw the demo I thought it was going to be all flashy interface changes with no functionality, but the interface, in my opinion, is actually much more functional. I actually found myself trying to do 2008 stuff in 2007 and started to weep when I couldn’t. Maybe not weep, but I felt really frustrated. Anyway, tomorrow, we’ll look into more of the tools.
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Interesting take on the interface changes. I don’t believe it is true that you have more space. That’s something that can be measured. The new interface takes up more space than the old one, and more of it is blank. By putting everything on the CommandManager, there is more clicking to do.
The main things to me are the loss of flexibility and the problems with shifting back and forth between text and icons in the RMB menus.
Anyway, I do like the pop-up toolbars, but the S key won’t benefit me much. You can have hotkeys directly to the functions on the toolbar, why have a hotkey bring up a toolbar from which you select something? That adds a step.
Once you look past the gloss of the shiny new interface, the actual functionality is less than 2007 in several areas.
Yeah, I actually did measure it. I have 45 more pixels of usable space, which isn’t much, but I really like it.
In terms of functionality, do you mean they’ve added less than they did in 2007?
I think the interface provides better functionality or maybe functioning. I didn’t at first, but the more I used it and then went back to 2007 made me wish I was using 2008.
What would be interesting is to compare the speed between version. One person has asked me (kind of sarcastically) if it’s faster that 2001.
You have to measure to the bottom of the tabs, or the bottom of the heads up toolbar, not just to the bottom of the gray area.
About functionality, I mean that they have removed functionality that existed in 2007.
Oh, and the graphics stuff is only a benefit if you have a new card capable of taking advantage of it. I have two nice cards both about 1.5 years old, and they are both on the “not recommended” list (FX3450). For most users like me, the graphics are going to be a step backwards in performance. Mine looks good, but rotates like a Radeon.
Josh,
Very nice job with your review. You went into some great detail. I’ll be preparing a user interface post for my blog and will be linking to your post.
I can tell the UI change will be a big topic of discussion. I have had an experience similar to yours. I find myself looking for the new right click menus now in SW2007!
Matt brings up some good points. It is disappointing that a 1.5 year old high end graphics card cannot run the new Realview very well. If I was in his situation, I would feel the same way. There are going to be quite a few users that are stuck in the same situation.
Looking forward to all the posts to come in the next few weeks/months.
Best Regards,
Ricky Jordan
http://www.rickyjordan.net
I think the biggest beef I have with some of the new interface changes are not the actual changes themselves, but the fact that they’re not customizable. Like you said, the first one that bothered me the most the Heads Up toolbar. I like the idea, but let me customize it. I like the new RMB functionality, but again, let me have the CHOICE as to whether it is an icon or below in text, and where the icons are placed, in what order (my hand naturally goes right->down when picking from RMB menus not right->up).
Regardless I’m definitely looking forward to the dimensioning and tolerancing capabilities for 2008.
Yeah, having to buy a new video card is going to be a big disappointment if you’ve just bought one. Were running 6-12 month old systems with nVidia Quadro 1300/1400 and haven’t seen any problems yet, but we don’t use RealView typically.
You would think SolidWorks looks at the curve on this, because they have to stay economic as it pertains to hardware as well. It may be that most of their statistics show users within the threshold of system upgrades. That would be an interesting set of data to look at.
i´ve defined the short cut bar to be started using the fourth mouse button at my logitech … i´ve customized my shortcut bar to include all toolbar icons as i´ve used before in command manager … sketch icons, feature icons, surface icons, sheetmetal icons, asm icons and so on … and i´ve deactivated command manager and all standard toolbars … just a click with my thumb, and i get the whole set of SWX functions by using nearly fullscreen graphics area … very cool !!
my biggest chock is the right click > down move reflex if using RMB menu: after 9 years of SWX, its really hard to change my reflex
i still hope that SWX build in an option setting for this !!
the biggest flop are the hardware requirements for RX … it gives the best graphics result i´ve ever seen in 3D CAD but i worry that it makes RX a demo tool … no real live engineer gets new hardware every 12 month !!
That’s a great idea Ulrich. I’ll have to try it out. I do not use the Command Manager either. All I have is the top menu bar and 1 row of icons.
I hope they make all the flyouts and the heads-up toolbar more customizable too. Those do really take some getting use to.
Hi :Ulrich Hanisch
Could you show us some screen captures of how you setup the whole interface? or give more detail instructions for your interface setup?
My email address is sdlin@flash-eng.com.
Thanks in advance
Hi :Ulrich Hanisch
Could you post your Solidworks 2008 settings files (by copy setting wizard) here?
Thanks in advance.
hi lin shaodun! it´s very easy: just turn off command manager and all toolbars by using tools > customize … then close this dialog … when in sketch mode, press `s´ key and you´ll get the standard shortcut toolbar for sketcher … right click to this toolbar and customize .. one can add all icons which are available in standard toolbars … best is to use flyout icons for not using too much space in the toolbar first level … after finishing the shortcut toolbar in sketch mode, switch to a part modeling situation … again: press `s´ key and right click to customize this shortcut toolbar … one can define seperate shortcut toolbars for sketcher, part modeling, asm functions and drawing functions … unfortunately, there is no special shortcut toolbar when in blank started SWX (to select file open or file new) or when cosmos tab is active (for cosmos related things) … if you´ve finished your customization, and if you´re using a four button logitech mouse, you can define any keyboard key to be automated when click to the fourth mouse button … in this case, you should define the `s´ key to be used at your fourth mouse button .. one can do this inside the logitech driver software .. i think, there are similar tools for other mouse manufacturers … that´s it .. and then you need some hours of training to get the same speed in your thumb as known from the old workflow
Thanks for leaving that comment Ulrich. That is a really interesting approach to the new interface. I’ll try it out.
i say solidworks is the wellriched,advanced & faster than any other mechanical design software,also its very user friendly, any one can learn this software very quickly.
i have one question:
is there any additional option for electrical wiring & circuit modling in the software for electrical design
iam using soildworks-2008
if anybody knows please mail me
my mail id - arun_k1987@rediffmail.com
I would suggest using SolidWorks® routing to start. If you are already you want to upload all the SolidWorks® routing profiles. I have a video posted on my site (inspirtech.com) that will show you how to do that. It is entitled Unleashing weldments, but it applies to routing profiles as well.
Also, try to make use of the design library to save your common components.
I hope this is a help,
AL