I've switched to solidworks from Inventor about two years ago and I'm still not used to this. It drives me insane. I do lots of navigating through the tree. I'll select a feature from the tree, click mate and want to find the other feature through the tree. Problem is when i click mate, the dialog box opens in the tree area as everyone is probably aware, and the tree gets put into the modeling window. No surprise here. But the annoying bit is that I lose my spot in the tree, now i need to go looking for the damn feature again through the tree. Is there a way i can configure SW to give me a window pop up when i select a function and leave my tree as is? if not, can i configure it so that when i do click on a function, it puts my tree on the modeling window but in the same location i left off at?
If you are hunting through the tree for things to mate, I assume you are likely hunting for planes or origins.
I have written a couple of macros that make selection of reference geometry much easier to do from the graphics area. No more searching the feature tree.
This should be mapped to a shortcut key for maximum convenience.
It only operates on the last thing selected. It will change that selection to one of the reference geometry features of the selected component.
So, you select some face/edge/etc of a component, hit the key until the desired plane is selected, ctrl-select another component and hit the key until the desired plane is selected, and then add the mate.