- A giraffe heart weighs about 24 pounds.
- Plastic sheaths at each end of a shoe lace are called aglets.
- The world’s largest baseball bat is 120 feet long. It weighs 68,000 pounds.
- Pat Welsh was the voice of E.T. in the movie E.T. the Extra-terrestrial
- That dot over the lowercase j and i is called a tittle.
New in SolidWorks 2012: User interface improvements
This is the first in a series of articles that will cover *some* highlights of new functions added in SolidWorks 2012. Just as a matter of a reminder, I am an employee of Dassault Systemes. However, what I’m doing here is talking about improvements that interest me. User Interface isn’t the most exciting topic to start with. However, these are good improvements (a couple of which are a long time coming).
Recent Documents
In a recent release, Recent Documents window (accessed via File pulldown menu>Browse Recent Documents… or by pressing the letter R on out-of-the-box installs) was drastically improved with a more accessible interface. There’s been several minor improvements in SolidWorks 2012. The one that impressed me the most is the addition of a pin that allows you to pin a document onto the Recent Documents window. No matter how many other documents come and go, your pinned document will remain on the Recent Documents list until you unpin it. No matter where you originally pin your document in Recent Documents window, pinned documents automatically reposition themselves to the top-most/left-most available position to allow for best discoverability.
Additionally, the pin function is also available on the list of recent documents in the File pulldown menu itself. Pinned documents here are the same as in the Recent Documents window.
Search Commands
Search Commands is a new tool that allows you to nearly instantly type in the name of a command in order to find and run it. The concept is kind of a throwback to the old days with command line driven CAD. However, the implementation in SolidWorks provides helpful results that navigate through the CommandManager as choose your command.
Search Commands may be activated in a number of ways, but the quickest out-of-the-box method is the S-Key. Yup, the S-Key has just been made more powerful with the added function of activating Search Commands tool. S-Key still brings up the Shortcut bar. The difference is that now you can just start typing the name of the command for which you are searching.
Additionally, you can assign shortcuts to Search Commands so that tools can now be run with a series of keystrokes instead of being limited to single keystrokes or CTRL/SHIFT/ALT combinations.
Spanning and Fitting to Displays (real multiple monitor support is finally here!)
You can now control how SolidWorks displays itself and individual documents across multiple monitors in a useful manner. The new span option works with single monitors just as well too.
With two monitors, this option knows how to place two documents so that each on fills one of the two screens. It even knows how to handle two monitors of difference sizes and resolutions where the SolidWorks window may not fill both equally. Spanning Displays is a big useability improvement for those of us that frequently need more than one document open.
Controlling how flag notes are attached to leaders (part 2)
I’m finally getting around to part 2 of my article Controlling how flag notes are attached to leaders. Sorry for the long delay. There’s been a lot going on IRL. Also, for a very brief .001 second, I thought it might be funny to just do a bunch of part 1’s and never get around to doing part 2’s or 3’s. Unfortunately, that would only be funny to me, so it wouldn’t really be funny at all.
Add flag notes to drawings using annotation borders
In addition to flag note symbols mentioned in part 1 of this article, another way to create flag notes is with the use of annotation borders. Depending on the results you want, there’s two ways to add borders. The method is the same, but selection choices make for slightly different results.
1. Create an annotation note with a leader.
2. Type in the number of the flag note.
3. While still editing the annotation, highlight the number (either using SHIFT and LEFT ARROW or by selecting with the mouse)
4. While remaining in the edit mode (with the text highlighted), click on the Border drop down box in the PropertyManager. Choose the required shape.
5. Choose OK and this will be your result. Note the gap between the leader shoulder and the flag note (image below). This is similar to the result when using a flag note symbol from the Symbol Library. For triangles, this border method produces an equilateral triangle, where the Symbol Library is an isosceles triangle.
Flag note with touching leader (no gap)
Some people may prefer a flag note that touches the shoulder of the leader. This is my personal preference too. It follows the same look and feel as balloons and other symbols. To achieve this style, follow steps 1 and 2 above, then continue with these steps below.
3. Exit the edit mode. You should see a leader with just a number.
4. Select the leader note as one entity (LMB click anywhere on the leader note; shoulder, arrow, text, doesn’t matter).
5. With the note selected, click on the Border drop down box in the PropertyManager. Choose the required shape.
6. Choose OK and this will be your result. Note the leader shoulder connects with the flag note (no gap).
I hope this How-to (or is this a Tips and Tricks?) helps!
Facebook coming to SolidWorks Legion
Linking a blog to Facebook isn’t as easy as linking it to Twitter. That’s why I haven’t done it up to this point, even though there’s been a page for SolidWorks Legion on Facebook for a couple of years. Today, I finally did it. With the publishing of this very post that you are reading right now, I’m testing the success (or failure) of my efforts. If you are reading this sentence on Facebook (and seeing the SolidWorks Legion logo within the wall posting, as well) then I succeeded. 🙂 Here we go… One.. Two… Three..
SolidWorks World 2012 – submit Abstract for your presentation idea
If you feel that you have a good information to share about a particular SolidWorks related topic, then perhaps it is time to consider giving a presentation at SolidWorks World 2012. The perk for presenters is that you get a free Full Conference Pass (saves you just under a $1000 or so). Your presentation idea doesn’t have to be a topic that is specifically about SolidWorks products. It may be that you can talk about something that can help SolidWorks users in a particular area of their role within their company. For example, I gave a well received presentation at SolidWorks World 2011 on Establishing CAD standards within a SolidWorks environment (also, see the article My road to becoming a presenter at SolidWorks World). I’m certainly not the most polished speaker in the world, country, state, county, town or even on my block. You don’t have to be great at public speaking (though it may help). As long as you know your material, attendees will appreciate learning from your time and effort.
Although all topics will be equally considered, there is a special interest in Drawing presentations this year. If you have good information to share about general tips and tricks, templates/sheet formats, using drawings in PDM, drawings basics, leveraging model data, ISO and ASME standards, etc, the SolidWorks team would love to see your submission for a presentation! For example, at SolidWorks World 2011, there was an excellent presentation on the ASME Y14.5 drafting standard.
Of course, there are many other topics to cover!
In fact, customer success presentations are great because they usually provide real world examples of how SolidWorks functionality was leveraged to speed up their design process. These can be useful to other users and companies, often in other industries!
If you are not interested in being a presenter, the excellent variety of presentations at SolidWorks World is a great way to expand your knowledge and connect with others in industry.
A Candidates’ Market Emerges, or Maybe It Always Has Been
Article by Rob Romaine, president of MRINetwork. Republished with permission of The Chatham Group, an MRI company. The statements expressed in this article are those of the original author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of SolidWorks Legion or its authors.
No one seems to question the connection between unemployment, the employment market, and the economy. They are often used almost interchangeably. Yet, the three are different, and right now, they are in disparate places.
May saw a significant slowdown in the number of jobs being added to the workforce as the declines in the unemployment rate, which began early this year, came to a halt. The general economy, which a few months earlier had been showing signs of growing faster than expected, has failed to impress. The talent market, however, is such a different story that it seems counterintuitive.
In a recent survey of MRINetwork recruiters, more than half (54 percent) characterized the current market as candidate-driven. In fact, 52 percent of respondents noted an increase in the number and competitiveness of counteroffers in the last six months.
“Successful companies are frugal. They don’t throw money around just because they can and when they do begin making counteroffers, especially the kind we’ve seen recently, there is a reason for it,” says Rob Romaine, president of MRINetwork. “Employers who have had to conduct major searches over the last year understand better than anyone the cost and difficulty associated with finding top candidates today. When top talent resigns, employers are finding it easier to counteroffer, even if it falls outside their traditional pay grade for a role.”
In the survey, recruiters noted companies that never use counteroffers or even have explicit policies against them are making offers. Some are just monetary-recruiters report seeing as much as a 40-percent increase in base pay-while others focus on non-monetary issues.
“Compensation always plays a role when talent changes positions. But the last few years have been hard on corporate cultures as cost-cutting measures have trimmed back many, if not most, of the perks that defined great workplaces a decade ago,” says Romaine. “Not only is improving the workplace environment important for retention but also for recruitment. If a candidate sees a drab, low energy office in an interview, it’s going to take a substantially larger offer to lure them away than a bright and active office.”
What turns the act of recruiting from a science into an art form is the ability to nurture that sense of attraction and excitement for a position that will entice a great employee with a steady job to resign and take a new opportunity. If the hiring process is drawn out, that excitement will wane.
“On average, we are seeing employers take more than five weeks from a candidate’s first interview until an offer is made,” says Romaine. “After more than a month, what started as an exciting opportunity becomes a nerve-wracking process that has thrown the candidate’s future into limbo.”
Companies should not be fooled by a cool economy or a stubbornly high unemployment rate into thinking that it is an employer’s market.
“At the same time, when push comes to shove, for top talent, it always is a candidate-driven market,” notes Romaine. “Today we are seeing a tighter market for top talent than perhaps is typical. But in truth, top performers are sought after regardless of the economic cycle.”