Some highlights of what’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2015 (Beta)

Hi there,

Just poking through the beta version of SOLIDWORKS 2015 still, and finding some great changes. Some of the ones that pertain to beginners & the interface I’ll note here.

– There’s a Configurations toolbar now which floats. This makes it easier to change configurations; you won’t have to go to, for example, the Configuration Manager tab of the Feature Manager on the left side of the screen. Instead, you can float the toolbar (or dock it in the usual places) and change configurations from a drop down menu that shows all your configurations.

– Uh, this is a cool one: you can customize the content sensitive menus. What’s that? Well, when you right click, you get a menu. This menu changes depending on where you’re at, what you’ve got selected, which tool is open, etc. So, that’s why it’s called “content-sensitive”. It’s the built-in intelligence of the software anticipating your next move. Now, you can customize these contextual menus so that tools you use most often are available to you. This is not for every right-click; only for when you select a feature in the graphic area or the Feature Manager Design Tree. Now you can scroll to “Customize” and you’ll be taken to a favorite well known window, the commands tab of the Customize dialog window. But you can’t reorder the default commands, nor can you add flyout toolbar buttons to the context sensitive menus.

– You can create subfolders within your Favorites folder – this lets you group features you use most frequently by type or other useful category that you specify.

– There’s a new tool called Magnifying Glass that is on the Tools menu and the Select flyout menu. It’s different than any of the existing zoom tools. You can also get to it by right-clicking in blank space in the graphic area.  You can add this tool to the Heads-Up toolbar. Shortcut for it is G. So, what does it do? It gives a magnified view of a section of a model that you click on, without changing your current view. BTW, this tool is disabled if you’re using the Use software OpenGL.

Stay tuned for more!

Thanks, Rosanna D – VTN

What’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2015 (Beta)?