Simply place your left mouse over the >> symbol, press down and drag to expand the toolbar.If you right click on the >> symbol, you will see the additional tools available. You can then select any of those tools without expanding the toolbar. Nifty!

Turns out that I had totally missed this very cool new feature, so I played around with it...it still is a little buggy and I am assured by Garin that it will be improved with the next Inventor Service Patch and even more improved in the R12.

There are some limitations...you can only drag and drop one part at a time...so if you select a screw (for example), you can only place it once...then you have to go back to the content center to pick the same screw again to place it again. It is faster to just copy and paste it from the browser.

Also the Search command is not completely functional. You can search on one term only (inch, for example); not compound terms (inch + countersink). The Search also doesn't index across terms (Phillips vs. Cross, for example).

However, it is worth playing around with, so if you have Inventor R11 (either Standard or Pro), check it out.

The SolidWorks discussion group doesn't work half as well as the Autodesk forum...performing a search usually comes up empty, which means I have to post...most of the people who respond to my questions appear to be junior level drafters who don't understand WHY I would want to do that?

Now, sometimes when folks who email me with a question, I will ask why they need to know...but my question comes from a need to understand what they are trying to achieve, not questioning their need to do it. Half of the time my questions on the SW forum aren't answered at all...I suspect because SW can't do what I am asking...and I only ask questions on topics that I know Inventor can do, so my premise is if Inventor can do it and SW is the more mature product, why can't SW?

For example, occassionally I need to flip the normal for a sketch...why? So, when I set my display normal to the sketch, the display is orientated the way I want...can't I visualize in my head? Sure, but it is easier & faster. if I can flip the normal for the sketch (draw on the backside of a workplane instead of the front). Both Pro/E and Inventor will allow you to easily set which side of the work plane you are drawing on. However, for you to flip the normal in SW, you have to select a perpendicular face (and Lord help you if you don't have on) and then select the back-side of the plane, to reset the sketch's normal. What a pain!

I have always raved about Inventor's Common Space that allows you to easily navigate around the display...nothing similar in SW. The best I have been able to do is to set my arrow keys to 45 degrees in the Options dialog and then use my arrow keys to rotate the display by 45 degrees starting from normal and then saving the displays. Apparently, the SW folks don't think you want to view a model from any iso point that the front right iso. Sheesh!

Every once in a while, I mistype a dimension value in SW....watch out as everything shifts waaaaay off. To modify the dimension, I have to select the dimension text, not the extension line...this means I often have to zoom out, zoom in, pan, etc. searching for the text I need to modify. In Inventor, I can select the extension line and it automatically knows to bring up the dimension to be changed.

Final rant...inserting a hole in SW is unnecessarily difficult...the dialog is hard to read. And if you don't select the face where you are placing your holes FIRST, SW does not assume that the holes are normal, resulting in some very odd results. Also, no quick placement methods to create holes like concentric to a face, etc. Yes, you can assign the constraints so it works, but takes twice as long as Inventor everytime.

Well, thanks for reading this rant...it always feels better to get these types of annoyances off one's chest.

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