Quick Pick and Layer Settings Pain...

[NorthwesternDesign]

We recently made the switch from NX5 to 7.5. In NX 5, within an assembly, the single components would highlight first, then the subassemblies. Now, the subassemblies highlight first. It might seem trivial but with large assemblies when all I want to do is WAVE link geometry from individual component, now I have to wait for each subassembly to highlight until I can select the component.

The other problem is in Layer Settings. I used to be able to for instance select Layer 100 and while holding the mouse button down I could select several layers in a row. Now I have to use the shift button. Wah! Wah!! Not a big deal, but why change something that worked well before?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Here's a little secret as to how to make QuickPick behave better; just go to...

Preferences -> Selection...

...and in the 'QuickPick' section of the dialog, toggle OFF the 'QuickPick on Delay' option and hit OK.

Now QuickPick will never be activated UNTIL exactly when you want it to be. NO MORE waiting for it to timeout and finally come into play. NO MORE being a bit slow on the draw and having it come up when you don't want it to. All you do now is that when you want to use QuickPick, hold down MB1 for a half-second or so and it pops into action. Don't hold down MB1 and it will never come up. Give it a try; once you get used to it, you'll wonder how you ever managed the old way.

As for your selection behavior where the sub-assembly is being picked before a member component, check the 'Selection Scope' setting on you Selection Bar and if it's NOT set to 'Entire Assembly' change it so that it is.

As for the 'Layer' dialog, since it's being presented in a format similar to what you'd find in something like a 'navigator' or the Windows Explorer, we provided support for the standard selection gestures such as 'Select' to pick a single item, 'Shift+Select' to pick a range and 'Ctrl+Select' to add to or remove an item from the current selection stack. We just made it consistent with the rest of NX (and Windows).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[NorthwesternDesign]

Thanks John. Those are definately good points. I realized that back in NX5 with the Selection-quick pick delay and I made sure that I did it in NX 7.5. I forgot to mention that I "did" have the selection scope set to Entire Assembly. Not sure why it is different, but it is difficult to get used to.

Thanks for the explanation on the layers!

 

[JohnRBaker]

I just tested NX 7.5 selecting Sub-assemblies versus the components in a sub-assembly, and as long as the 'Selection Scope' was set to 'Entire Assembly' the individual components were given priority over the sub-assemblies, and this was on an assembly with 4 levels of sub-assemblies. Partial loading or using lightweight had no effect one way or the other.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[NorthwesternDesign]

Thats good to know... Not sure what to tell you though except that it is not that way on my computer. Wonder if there is some other setting?

 

[NorthwesternDesign]

FYI, the assemblies were originally created in NX 5. When I created a junk assembly in NX7.5, it seemed to work (most of the time) as you have noticed.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I recommend that you take your original NX 5.0 assembly, and using the 'refile_part.exe', update all of the parts, including all of the sub-assemblies. This will do a batch convert of your NX 5.0 files, making them NX 7.5 files. This is the best route to go when bring older parts forward to be used in a newer version of NX.

However, that being said, I just opened in NX 7.5 (without performing an explicit refile) a multi-level assembly (meaning that there were sub-assemblies in it) from NX 3.0 and I still have no problems selecting the individual components inside the various sub-assemblies.

I really don't know what to say...

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.com/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.