Use More Monitor... with Less Mouse Motion

Among the variety of SolidWorks tips that are regularly shared among users, a recent post on the official SolidWorks Blog entitled Stop Mousing Around! is genuinely worthy of recognition and appreciation.  In this post Matthew Lorono (Definition Product Manager at SolidWorks Corp.) shared an overlooked but incredibly effectual feature in Windows that involves... are you ready for this... Mouse Properties.  So why should something so seemingly basic as Mouse Properties garner such attention?

Well, over the years CAD users have embraced the benefits of increased monitor size.  Today many are likewise expanding those benefits by increasing the number of monitors.  Overlooked however, is that many have also steadily increased their mouse (wrist) movements to accommodate these larger spans... unnecessarily.

  

To facilitate adjusting your mouse, Mouse Properties can be accessed in Windows by selecting:
Start > Control Panel > Mouse > Pointer Options.  The Pointer Options page contains a Motion slide bar that ranges from Slow to Fast.  To reduce the amount of wrist motion required to move the mouse pointer, simply increase the speed of the mouse pointer.  It may take only a few iterations before finding a personal setting that yields an agreeable balance between motion and speed.

Yes, this is one of those rare tips that produces immediate and lasting improvement for essentially any CAD user.