You can speed up your CAD a lot by customizing SolidWorks to match what you’re used to, or by making some commonly used commands quick to use by assigning them to keybinds/mouse gestures. However, note that you should still know where all commands are by default because our computer will not have these customized. With that being said, here’s how to customize shortcuts on your machine.
Mouse Gestures
When right clicking and dragging in any direction, a segmented donut pops up with different tools/shortcuts you can use. You can choose which tools and how many tools pop up in your mouse gestures menu. I recommend including the Select tool under Electrical Tables (not under Sketch Tools) so you can quickly exit any tools you may have accidentally enabled.
To change your mouse gestures:
- Open a new part
- Click the dropdown next to the settings icon, then click Customize
- Go to the Mouse Gestures tab
- Modify the number of gestures to whatever you like
- Search for any command and drag them into the sample donuts on the right
- Click OK
Keyboard Shortcuts
Additionally, you can add keyboard shortcuts to achieve a similar effect to the mouse gestures. There are quite a few on default, but I’ve personally set “D” to smart dimension, “Ctrl+Shift+S” to Save As, and “V” to normal to (If a flat plane/face is selected, view will align itself to that face. If none selected, view will snap to nearest face. Highly recommend adding this as a keyboard shortcut or mouse gesture for quick view manipulation)
To change your keyboard shortcuts:
- Open a new part
- Click the dropdown next to the settings icon, then click Customize
- Go to Keyboard and start assigning tools to key combinations
- Click OK
