One of the most interesting things to me when beta arrives for each major release of SolidWorks is what enhancement have been made to the User Interface.  SolidWorks 2012 does not offer a lot of enhancements to the UI but the ones that they do are awesome in my eyes.

The Recent Documents command has been around for a while now but the enhancements made in 2012 are game changers in my eyes.  One of the features in Microsoft Office 2010 that I like the most is the ability to pin Recent Documents that you use a lot so that you have quick access to them without crowding your desktop with shortcuts.

SolidWorks 2012 also now allows you to pin Recent Documents which will be extremely nice when it comes to commonly used files.  The Recent Documents window can be launched by using the “R” keyboard shortcut (default).  As you can see in the image below this window now allows you to not only pin Recent Documents but it also allow you to quickly open the folder that the file resides in.  Quick and easy access to a project.

But it doesn’t end there.  Your Recent Document can also be accessed using the File dropdown menu as shown in the image below.  You will notice that your pinned documents are carried over there as well with the option to show the file in its folder here as well.

I think that this enhancement is a homerun and will increase the usage of the Recent Documents tool by many users.  Nice job SolidWorks developers!