Feature tree

Any kind of help is much appreciated.


As I insert a component to an assembly, the name of the added part in Feature Tree changes to
(-)[Part name] <1>(Default<<Default>_Display State1>

[Part Name] is the file name of component.
What does (-) and <1>(Default<<Default>_Display State1>means?
and is there anyway to stop them from being added?

the Feature tree seems to be so crowded and it's hard to find a specific part.
here's a screen shot:
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/3356/44966862.jpg

I'm using SolidWorks 2010 on windows 7.

thank you

Edited by: vip_shadow

The <1> is the number assigned to that instance of that part. So if you have a component called A, if you you insert it once it will have <1> after it, if you insert it again into the same assembly, it will have a <2> after the second instance of that part, a third time and the third instance will have a <3> after its name in the feature tree and so on. This allows you to keep track of which instance of the same part is which.


The rest saying about the Default display state is telling you that you are using the default configuration of that part. SolidWorks allows you to use the same part with a Design table (effectively a spreadsheet) to create different configurations of a part, for example, you could model an M3 bolt and then using the same part with a design table to drive the various dimensions, create lots of other sizes of bolt, all within the same file. If you did have this set up then in the feature tree of your assembly, you would see the configuration display state.


So no, there isn't a way to turn this off or not display it that I know of but to be honest, you don't want to turn it off, you need that information!!!

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this neither, unless you are actually using display states other than the default. There is an easy way to turn this off.

In your assembly, right-click on the topmost item in your tree (Assem1 by default) and go to Tree Display and tick off Show Component Configuration Names and Show Component Configuration Descriptions

Million thanks to both for your time and help

And (-) sign tells you that, part is not completely mated.
its not fully assembled and can be altered to any position.