Select other shortcut

After writing the above, I decided to play a little (all the next are in asm mode, picking faces of a model). At first I was a little bummed for being so out of touch, but now I think that maybe I didn't miss something in a 'what's new' demo? Because it lacks, um, consistency (or any documentation I could find in the HELP). Could this RMB shortcut stuff be a microsoft thingy, like the shortcuts for navigating the standard drop-down menus?

'P', which I use for 'Plane' actually invokes 'open file' (huh?) 'I' inverts selection. 'O' opens the part I selected through RMB in the assembly into a seperate window (useful! but open part is usually easy to find) 'R' - recent commands (not so useful... I think... must noodle on that one) 'E'-kicks you into 'edit part' mode. And out. 'T' - delete 'U' - suppress component 'A' - something about an archive folder (PDM?) 'D' - Mate (??? especially since 'M' doesnt appear to do anything ) 'F' - add configuration (???) 'G' - jumps the highlight to 'goto component in tree'. I'll use this one if I can remember it. 'H' - hide (natch) 'K' - edit sketch 'L' - looks like 'view mates' 'Z' - drop down zoom menu (not so useful to me - I like the exsiting keyboard commands, middle mouse button stuff, or toolbars) 'C' - shange transparency (How often do I use that!!! I like that one!!!) 'V' - shows the mates that apply to that component... maybe (some are the same, some are not??? Could be an asm and subasm thing? I can't figure it out and don't want to blow my groove trying to) 'B' - zebra stripes. I have made my feelings about zebra stripes plain over the years, so no ed-gasms on this one. 'N' - replace component. Handy, but 'N'?

-------------------------------- Now is where this will get awkward, because (a) for some reason I am enthralled and am continuing this exploration and (b) things are different in part from assembly.

In assemblies, W does nothing. In parts, it invokes the 'open part' command. In assemblies, 'o' invokes open part - in parts, its rollaback. 'P' suppresses the selected feature.

More in parts RMB clicking a face ( I really don't want to start looking into edges, verteces, bodies, junk in the tree, etc) 'U' in part starts curvature display or turns it off for that face. 'E' (not 'b' as in asm) starts zebra stripes. Again, no ed-gasm. Sorry about the blue-balls for all you zebra-stripe lovers. 'H' for hide body - Rocks! 'L' is delete, oddly not 'T' as in assemblies. 'T' is edit sketch, oddly not 'K' as in assemblies 'K', strangely, does nothing in parts (obvious lack of leadership on this) 'C' - contour select 'N' starts a new sketch on the selected face

I could see most of these not being replacements in my life for actually searching for the item in the RMB menu (espeically when the key is inconsistent), but a few (like select other, change transparency, or hide/show bodies-components) I might adopt ino my workflow just to add that extra second or two of speed.

However, the kicker - the number one shortcut key I want in my life, Parent-Child - I can't activate it any way that I can see, and in 2007 beta it was still not in the list for hotkey assignmnet.

Ed

for the second time I resumed the search after signing off. I must learn not to post so soon...

Drumroll please...

'/' invokes parent child, probably because of the question mark above it. This is awesome. Thank you and good night.

Ed

P.S. And Wayne, I am sooooo sorry - as keeper of the master list I have probably just hosed your weekend. And finding that it is just not the alphabet, but might also include punctuation, too? Pass on my apologies to the family - heck, I still owe them for that 3GB-switch thing that you ran with

...

That's just the Alt-key shortcuts kicking in. In SW, you can't see the underlines in the RMB menus if you have the option set to hide the underlines until you press Alt (rmb desktop, properties, appearance, effects, hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key)

Further, you should be able to access this all from the keyboard, but the context sensitive menu button on the keyboard (next to Ctrl on the right side of the keyboard for the 3 keyboards I have here) works in every application I have except SolidWorks. Bummer. I'm always looking for alternatives to the mouse.

You are on the right track - the "hotkeys" you have found are actually the Windows Underlined Letters for Keyboard Navigation. One of the reasons you see inconsistencies is because not all menus are the same if you have a part/assy/drawing open. Also, the user has the opportunity to customize the menus, so that will change things. The underline keys are assigned by the programmer, and if there happens to end up being more than one menu item with the same underlined letter, the first command gets the go. Go to

to see how to turn on the underlines (or turn off) without having to press the Alt key.

Years ago I debated including all of these in the list, but decided that there were way too many inconsistencies to be worth trying to use them consistently, other than if you find one that works with your menu setups, etc. Oh, if you look at the menu line for parent/child in a part RMB, you will see that the underlined character is the "/" - that's why it works. But, in an assy, the "/" is assigned to Add/Edit Mates. Sorry.

WT

Sort of what I figured - but, new to me, might be new and useful to someone else. I never use the keyboard for the dropdown menus, but I think I might be doing it with a few common things in the RMB

No kidding it would be ugly to document. It's interesting that it is different per setup. On both computers I use, the '/' IS parent child. (I'm really happy about just that - I use parent child all the time and hate scanning for it in the ever changing RMB list. Its fun to get faster).