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one down. However, there are isolated situations that are usually created by the nested, absorbed features discussed earlier, where one feature cannot go in one direction, but the other feature can go in the opposite direction, achieving the exact same result. If you run into a situation where you cannot reorder a feature in one direction even though it appears you should be able to, try moving another feature the other direction.

Note

While this behavior may appear to be a bug, it is more likely just a product of parent/child relationships hidden by the way SolidWorks reorders consumed parent sketches and other types of features. If you were able to stretch the FeatureManager out into a straight line from earliest to latest, the difficulties in reordering would become apparent.

Reordering Folders

There are times when, regardless of which features you choose to move and which direction you choose to move them in, you are faced with the task of moving many features. This can be time-consuming and tedious, not to mention have the potential to introduce errors. To simplify this process, you can put all the features to be moved into a single folder, and then reorder the folder. Keep in mind that the items in the folder need to be a continuous list (you cannot skip features), and you can only reorder the folder if each individual feature within the folder can be reordered.

Best Practice

Folders are frequently used for groups of features that go together and that may be suppressed or unsuppressed in groups. You can also use folders in assemblies. Folders are frequently used to group cosmetic fillet features that are often found at the end of design trees for plastic parts or for groups of whole features.

To create a folder, right-click a feature, or a selected group of features, and select Add to New Folder. Folders should be renamed with a name that helps identify their contents. You can reorder folders in the same way as individual features. When you delete a folder, the contents are removed from the folder and put back into the main tree; they are not deleted.

You can add or remove features to or from the folders by dragging them in or out. If a folder is the last item in the FeatureManager, the next feature that is created is not put into the folder; you must place it in the folder manually. You cannot drag features out of a folder and place them immediately after it, because they will just go back into the folder. If you want to pull a feature out of a folder and place it after the folder, there must be another feature between the feature that you are moving and the folder. However, you can pull a feature out of the folder and place it just before the folder.

Using the Flyout and Detachable FeatureManagers

The Flyout FeatureManager resides at the top-left corner of the graphics window. The PropertyManager goes in the same space as the FeatureManager and is sometimes too big to allow this area to accommodate both managers in a split window.

The Flyout FeatureManager enables you to select items from the design tree when the regular FeatureManager is not available because it is covered by the PropertyManager. It usually appears collapsed, so that you can only see the name of the part and the part symbol. To expand it, click the plus icon next to the name of the part in the Flyout FeatureManager.

You can use the Flyout FeatureManager in parts or assemblies. However, you cannot use the Flyout FeatureManager to suppress or roll back the tree.

You can access the settings for the Flyout FeatureManager by choosing Tools⇒Options⇒FeatureManager⇒Use Transparent Flyout FeatureManager in Parts/Assemblies.

You may prefer not to work with the flyout FeatureManager because it interrupts your workflow by covering the regular FeatureManager with a PropertyManager; this inhibits your access to items you may have to select from the FeatureManager such as features and reference planes. If this is the case, you can use the detachable PropertyManager instead. Detaching the PropertyManager removes the need for the flyout. I