Do you work with widescreen monitors?  Dual monitors?  Have a laptop that is sometimes connected to an external widescreen monitor?  SolidWorks 2009 introduces a Workspace command to help arrange your Workspace for multiple setups.  The command has settings for Default, Widescreen, or Dual Monitor.

The different options have alternate settings for positions of certain task panes, such as the PropertyManager.  Unfortunately, users are currently unable to save their own customized Workspace; therefore this command is fairly limited right now.  But the framework is there now and hopefully this is a precursor to functionality that will be introduced in the future.

Do you have any special tips or tricks you use to make working with SolidWorks faster or easier?  Email them to us at tips@cadfanatic.com and it may be featured on a future CADFanatic’s Tips & Tricks Tuesday!

A good tip for SolidWorks (as well as just about any other app) is to always click the right mouse button (RMB) in different environments to see what options are available.  The RMB options change depending on the context of what you are doing.

In SolidWorks, for instance, a RMB in sketch mode will give you different options than a RMB in an assembly or drawing.

Something I personally always do on my new installations is to start a part, RMB on an empty area of a toolbar, choose "Customize…", select the Options tab, and click the "Show All" buttons under both the Shortcut & Menu customization fields.  This automatically expands all shortcut and menu flyouts so that you can see all commands that are available for every menu/RMB click.