At SOLIDWORKS World this year (read about it here), Bruce Holway, Director of Product Definition at SOLIDWORKS, announced that with Service Pack 3.0 of SOLIDWORKS 2016, we would have the ability to change the icon colors back to “Classic” mode. Well, the time has arrived! Service Pack 3.0 was released in April. With a couple of simple clicks, we can go from this:
back to this:
As you know, SOLIDWORKS does a great job listening to its users. Most of you who read this blog are also members of the SOLIDWORKS forums. If you are not, please check them out. There is a ton of wonderful information in there. The thread for User Interface exploded when 2016 came out. Many people were (sometimes violently) opposed to the change. So SOLIDWORKS decided to give us a choice!
SOLIDWORKS came through on their promise. The icons have remained the same, but we now have the ability to go back to the “Classic” color scheme. Here’s how it works:
Click on Tools> Options, and under System Options, click on “Colors” at the top of the screen, we now have a dropdown for “Icon Color.” Simply change this to “Classic” and you’re done! There is a popup that comes up asking you to change the “Background” to Medium Light for better contrast, but it is not requirement.
My Command manager for a part went from this:
To this:
Personally, I got used to the new colors in about a week. I am undecided on which color scheme I am going to stick with. One thing is for sure though, for our training rooms and demo machines, we will all be sticking with the new, slick colors.
Thanks for reading.
As always, happy modeling!