How to activate by means of keyboard Properties Manager

[ak762]

For quick work I use shortcut keys.
Property Manager tab activate automatically when you select entities or commands defined in the Property Manager
When I press key Alt underlined letters both in the menu and in Properties Manager appear
But if the cursor of a mouse on a graphic window I must click at Properties Manager space that to activate the underlined letters on it

My question:
How to activate by means of keyboard Properties Manager that then to use the underlined letters in it.
Perhaps guru of API can answer or anybody use a macro for it?

When I try to use customize ->keyboard
I did not find such ability

 

[ak762]

Hi folk,
Seems nobody understood my problem or wish to answer.
But I was advised one wise person about my question and I wish to share solution with all.

Q: How to activate by means of keyboard Properties Manager...

Answer:
Hold down Shift+Alt + appropriate underline letter in Properties Manager

If you use a mouse like Logitech you can assign Shift+Alt at one of additional buttons
Will be interesting to know if anybody can find other ways for same solution

 

[richardfoodindustrie]

I also have tried to find ways to invoke shortcuts
in the property manager but I could not
automate property manager picks in an acceptable way.
In the property manager sometimes options don't
have a shortcut possebility ( no _ under the character)
and there are often double assigned shortcuts
in a same property manager window. I guess we are
one of the few trying to avoid going into the
property manager and trying to automate things.
The property managers cause a lot of scroll and
mouse work and are very hard to workaround.
In older releases without the property managers
there were much better ways to get the most out
of Solidworks with the fewest possible mouseclicks.
My efficiency has gone down at least 30% because of
the propertymanagers. I am now trying to program
commands that show a popup with inputbox next to the
mouse for often used tasks. It feels like rewriting
big parts of the Solidworks userinterface to avoid the inefficiency of the property managers.
Especially when working with multiple windows you have
to scroll or maximize/minimize only to see your commands
all the time. Only Solidworks has this type of userinterface
that is so inefficient with multiple windows.
I think Solidworks has made it ways too difficult
with the property managers. It is easy to learn for
new users but terrible to drive once you are an
experienced user.

Richard

 

[SolidAir]

ak762 and Richard

I guess because most of the clicks and right clicks are so automatic after awhile, I am having a hard understanding on where you are having problems. Could you give some specific examples?

SA

 

[ak762]

SolidAir
No any problems. It depends from habits.
Somebody prefer change view with animation somebody not
Personally I use both RMB and shortcut key or click at Property manager too
but at wide display sometimes I wish to diminish movement from right side of screen to left
and relax my arm and fingers at mouse without break of work

 

[richardfoodindustrie]

Hi SA

I find working with multiple windows very
inefficient as you can't pick commands
anymore in the propertymanager as the property
manager is sometimes 3 times bigger than the window
hiding the commands.
You have to scroll or windows maximize before you
can invoke your commands.
This applies on many commands when working
with multiple windows.
If you could invoke propertymanager functions
by shortkeys, then this problem would be fixed
but that is not possible. If you only work on big
parts, then it isn't much a problem. If like
me you have many parts to assemble and many parts
to draw then it causes often much more than 1000
unnecessairy moves to the tree to scroll or windows
maximize. Just count and you will see how many times
you have to scroll or windows maximize only to see your
commands. I don't know any other CAD program that has
this kind of inefficiency. Of course, other CAD programs
have inefficincies also but this one in Solidworks is
really dissappointing. Solidworks was the first to invent
Windows CAD and now has inefficiency when working with
multiple windows, something windows was designed for.
Richard

 

[SolidAir]

Well I will agree that I do not like having to scroll and you cannot always see what is entered in the text boxes, but I am not sure about the rest. As for moving what use to be in the dialog boxes to the property manager, my VAR told me along time ago that SolidWorks did this because users complained they could not see the graphics area when the dialog box was opened. If this is true, then you cannot totally blame SolidWorks. As has been discussed before, all users have their preferences. There are probably many users that like the property managaer tab.

SA

 

[richardfoodindustrie]

Hello SA,

Thanks for your answers, I also heard something like that.
"Users complained they could not see the graphics area when the dialog box was opened", that is also what I heard as the reason to implement the propertymanager. I never found this a problem, once you changed a dialog menu to a preferred location it stayed there. Only for some commands the dialog boxes were hiding geometry.
But now this problem has been replaced by another. Now with the property manager users cannot see their commands instead
of the geometry with the dialog boxes with multiple
windows open. Which is worse?
I think the real solution should have been that the dialog boxes should have been more intuitive and much smaller so
they didn't hide the geometry. Just like the mate popup menu.

One example, to ad a prefix or add text to a dimension text, you have to move into the tree and go back. This causes me an enormous amount of unnecessairy mousemovements a day and even minor RSI problems.
What it should have been, something like shift+double click
or another shortkey that would immediately get you in a popup
text editer.

This is what I have done the last days, I don't need to go
in the tree anymore to change the dimensiontext. It just pops
up the old dialog box text editer on the right place and
I can immediately type, no need to move a mouse.

Shift+double click=edit dimension text in old dialog menu
Alt+double click=exit dimension text in old dialog menu
Double click=change dimension, of course standard solidworks.

I guess that if in SW2008 you would have to go into the tree
to change a dimensionvalue everybody would complain. It is
just inefficient to go into a property manager while there are
so many ways to avoid this.

This is just a logic way of avoiding mousemovement.
It will save me several hundreds move to the tree a day.
I am not finished yet, I think I can save thousands of mousemoves to the tree and regain some productivity loss because of the propertymanagers. However, it shouldn't
be necessairy, Solidworks should have invented better
ways instead of the propertymangagers for almost everything.

I guess it is a lot easier for programmers to add everything
in propertymangers, but I find it is getting more and more an onscreen database instead of an efficient userinterface. Especially when working with many windows open at the same time, propertymanagers are a real waste of mouseclicks and
mousemovements, scrollwork etc.
I like Solidworks as a CAD modeller, it's only that I am not happy with the userinterface, gradually Solidworks has
become an extreme mousemovement intensive program.
Of course there are programs that are even worse.
Solidworks was the first windows CAD developper that
made things much easier, but this is something that is so obvious for me that I wonder why they couldn't have done this part of the userinterface better.
Richard

 

[J-C]

I think the property manager could be made moe efficient with some shortcut keys and such but please oh please don't bring back dialogue boxes. I use UG at my day job and it still has the dialogues of old and I constantly find myself moving them out of the way....often I place them over UGs feature tree which pretty much the same as the property manager. Since UG only remembers the dialogues location for the current session...this is a constant thing.

Like I said...Solidworks could make this better...the popeup mate box is a step in the right direction (though some don't like it). Maybe more "Heads up" option on the screen.

Also Richard, you don't have to move the mouse over to the property manager, select the dimension, then tab through the dimensions property manager dialogue til it gets to the Dimensin Text field. Start adding a prefix....or hit the "End" key on the keyboard and add a suffix. You can also "Tab" tot he other fields and type or change options without using the mouse.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007 SP2.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

richardfoodindustrie ... sounds like you could use multiple monitors.

I often have multiple documents open, but rarely have more than two windows visible at the same time and usually arrange them vertically so that the Manager section's full height is maintained.

I use a Trackball Explorer, so mouse movement is zero. I let my fingers do the walking ... it's about the only exercise I get.