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If you have ever been in the CAD “zone”, working at full speed, rolling along on your SOLIDWORKS design project you have probably been faced with this before…
If so, you were over aggressive with the clicks and are faced with the dreaded CommandManager walk off. Before you know it the whole ribbon has flow away, landing in your graphics area or worse yet, on another monitor.
It isn’t a problem faced by only power users. I am yet to teach an Introduction to SOLIDWORKS class where this situation did not come up at least once. In fact almost all SOLIDWORKS users have probably seen their CommandManager wander off at least once.
If you aren’t following me, let me explain. One erroneous double click anywhere on the CommandManager, even on the icons themselves, and your CommandManager undocks from the top of the screen. The worst part is that it then jumps to the last place it was positioned when undocked previously.
If you are like me you probably just dock it back to the top, blame the mouse under your breath, and get back to work. Thankfully for you and I, there is now a solution to our woes, SOLIDWORKS 2016. In the latest release of SOLIDWORKS, toolbars can only be moved from a drag handle and we are given the ability to lock down the CommandManager and other toolbars.
Fear of your CommandManager running off to explore other sides of your screen are eliminated by forcing toolbars, including the CommandManager, to be moved by dragging a specific point. For the CommandManager that means grabbing it by one of the category tabs. All other menus are dragged by the dots on one side.
Command Manager
Other Toolbars
If you do attempt to move a toolbar anywhere else or double click on the CommandManager you will be warned it now must be done from the tabs.
We also have the ability to totally lock your toolbars and prevent any movement without first disabling the lock. First, you need to get to the Customize menu, which we can do one of two ways. Either click on the drop down next to the settings icon (gear) in your quick access toolbar, and select Customize.
Or right click on the CommandManager and choose Customize.
From the Customize menu, all you need to do is to check this little box, Lock CommandManager and toolbars.
With your CommandManager on lockdown you can run that mouse like a pro and fear not, your Command Manager is safely glued in place. So if you haven’t already, update your SOLIDWORKS to 2016 and enjoy one of the best features added in years, piece of mind with toolbar lock.
