Is there a way to show only the top level assemblies without their dependents in the Feature Manger of a SW assembly.
Is there a way to show only the top level assemblies without their dependents in the Feature Manger of a SW assembly.
I only want the top level assemblies with their origin features to be displayed in the feature manager. Now when working in a main assembly and placing and mating sub assemblies when I pick a part the feature manager expands and drills down to the part, I then have to navigate back up the tree to the top of the assembly I want to mate to find the origin features of the parent assembly to mate it in the main assembly. Most of our sub assemblies are made up of thousands of parts so the feature manager gets quits difficult to navigate when I am only mating the top level assemblies. I would be nice to have a option under the "Tree Display" menu for "Hide Children".
Shift+C will collapse the tree. Will that help?
No because every I pick a part in the display the tree expands again. I want SW to only see the top level assemblies. So when I pick a part it selects the assembly that part is in, not the part.
Right-click on each sub-assembly, choose "Speekpak Options > Create Mated Speedpak" from the drop-down. I've never used that but I believe it's what you need.
Thanks, that is an excellent idea, I will try it.
Deselecting the Scroll selected item into view option under Tools > Options > System Options > FeatureManager might also help.
You could right-click a part and select the Select Sub Assembly option from the drop down menu.
However, I like the idea of having an option to show only the origin, planes & axes of sub-assys. That would be helpful when mating lots of sub-assys.
I suggest you create an ER and also submit this to the SWW2014 Top Ten Ideas forum.
https://forum.solidworks.com/community/general/solidworks_world_2014_and_the_top_ten_list?view=idea
Two suggestions:
1. Use the reference geometry selection macro at Matthew Lorono's site. You can map this to a keystroke. You can select any component or entity from the feature tree, graphics area, etc. and run the macro. It will de-select the thing you selected and select one of the reference planes instead. Subsequent runs of the macro cycle through the origin, top, right, and front planes.
2. Since you can't run a macro (to select reference geometry) while the Mate property manager is visible, use the mate macros (also from Mr. Lorono). They are much faster than the SW mate function, especially when assemblies get large. They are a direct way to add coincident, parallel, concentric, and distance mates.
You only want the file name displayed in the tree? I don't know of any way to do that but someone else might. Do you mind me asking why you want that?