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Unlike Microsoft who look likely to barely release their 2003 server and Office products this year, SolidWorks have released their 2004 version already.
Never afraid to make changes in the interest of progress, 2004 sports many new interface elements as well as a range of new functionality.
The most notable change to the user interface is the CommandManager context sensitive toolbar which, in its default configuration, has a slightly ungainly tall appearance in order to accommodate a text description for each command button.
Fortunately the labels can be switched off.
Even then novice users are not left stranded, reliant upon memorising command icons, as the command descriptive pop-up tooltips have been extended to also include a brief description of functionality.
The control area at the left hand end allows the required feature, sketch, assembly or drawing toolbar to be selected either as a flyout menu of context appropriate commands or to dynamically update the contents of the full toolbar.
Menus now include icons as well as text entries and right click menus include bold headings for groups of related entries to help identify menu items from what can now be long lists.
User defined data such as part or feature names also appear on relevant headings.
Tabs for selecting the feature, property or configuration manager panes have been moved to the top for better accessibility and when a property manager pane is active the FeatureManager design tree pops out transparently over the model graphics area.
A valuable enhancement to section views allows the section plane to be dynamically dragged or rotated.