Accessing Extrudes from Sketch Short-cut

I came across this tip at the 2012 SolidWorks World (exchanging tips and information is one of the many reasons to attend SolidWorks World). I wish I could remember the name of the person who gave me this tip so I could give him credit for the great tip.

The Short-cut Bar, which is accessed by pressing the “S”  key (by default) on your keyboard, is one of my favorite ways of accessing SolidWorks commands. The commands available on the Short-cut Bar will vary depending on what you are currently doing. For example Assemblies, Drawings, Features or Sketches will all have their own Short-cut Bar. The reason I like using the Short-cut Bar, is that Short-cut Bar will appear where my cursor is positioned; this means there is no need to move you mouse to the Command Manager in order to select a command.

Fantastic… but the end step most sketches is feature creation; most often Boss & Cut Extrudes. Since the Short-cut Bar in a sketch only contains sketch tools, the  Command Manager is still required to create the feature.

But wait…how about adding  Boss & Cut Extrude commands to the sketch short-cut bar (yeah it was duh moment)

For those not familiar with the short cut menu, here is how it’s done.

1. In a sketch press the “S” key to activate the short-cut bar.
2. Right click on the short-cut bar and select “Customize”
3. Drag & Drop the commands you want to include. I added the Extrude and Cut command from Fly out Toolbar so I would have bot the Boss/Cut Extrudes and Revolve available from the short-cut bar