Ever wish you could rename your assembly models in the tree, instead of closing down and doing it in Solidworks Explorer?
Well Solidworks 2008 takes a big leap in this direction. Yesterday while doing some flow analysis in 2008, I was inserting "lids" into my assembly. I was noticing a different behavior upon inserting new components. First off, you no longer get prompted where to save, or how to name the new part. Upon clicking Insert > New Component, you then select a face or plane for the new model to be created on, and your instantly in sketch mode creating geometry.
In this picture, you can see I have Part 10 which was my first part
that the assembly was started with. I then created parts 11 and 12,
and have just finished creating part 13, and SW is now prompting me to
name it. Notice the brackets around part 12, which will also appear
around part 13 upon naming.
This picture shows the folder after creating parts 12 and 13 which are still in brackets. Notice they don't show up as files in this folder, yet they are fully resolved models in my assembly.
Now lets imagine you want to be a little bit more descriptive in your model names than I have. Time to close out the assembly, and launch SW Explorer right? Not any more!
Right click the model in the tree, and on the pop-up menu, you will now see Rename Part as shown in this picture.
Solidworks will then highlight the model name, and you can change it. You will then get the window shown in this picture. You have the option to save it internally into the assembly resulting in no file in your folder, or you can save it to a path which will place the file into a folder. Here I named it Post 2 and chose to save it into my working assembly folder.
Here is a picture of the resultant folder now showing Post 2 in it. Notice however that Part 12 still isn't in there because it is still only a virtual component in my assembly.
Imagine now being able to go through your assembly and rename your files once your assembly is done with relative ease. Functionality you like or dislike? You will know after using it a few times. I was a bit frustrated with it at first, but after reading through the help files, and understanding the intention of the new feature, I can see many benefits from it.
The idea is great but it doesn't work.
When i change my .asm the references do not update in the virtual components. Wich makes nog sence.
Posted by: marijn | March 26, 2008 at 08:36 AM
Russel, unfortunately the renaming of configs is still the same, I just tried it for you. This makes sense though in regards to virtual components. In that case, the parts are still virtual, so they are not open by SW and creating a file name issue that will keep you from renaming it. Once you save it as a true file, then you would be subject to the same problem you asked about. Hope that makes sense!
Posted by: Mike | August 23, 2007 at 02:30 PM
I love this! I would use this ALL THE TIME...this is the first new feature that really makes me want to upgrade soon.
Do you know if 2008 lets you rename configurations in a similar manner, without shutting all referenced documents?
Posted by: Russell | August 23, 2007 at 02:08 PM