Keyboard shortcuts in assembly mode

[cgherghe-2]

I am trying to create key mappings for CREO ASSEMBLY to execute options like COINCIDENT and DISTANCE --> you couple two parts in an assembly, based on an axis, and CREO defaults to something, usually Distance.
With a push of a keyboard button (or two), C makes it COINCIDENT (or CV), A is ANGLE OFFSET (or AS), P is PARALLEL (or PL), N is NORMAL (or NM), X is CENTERED (or XC) and so forth...
Is there a way to do this? This would save a lot of mouse clicks...
Thank you very much!!

[tbraxton · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is possible to do what you propose. Within Creo you would need to use the mapkey functionality to create the macros you need, I will warn you to NEVER use a single character mnemonic (i.e. "P")  for a mapkey as it will prevent the use of the character for any other mapkey definitions.

How to create mapkeys:

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS22968 

While it is possible, I would encourage you to research other options for the automated assembly of  components in assembly mode. There are multiple tools available in Creo to automate the assembly of parts. If you have components that you reuse often then mapkeys are not the most efficient method to manage this.

About Automatic Assembly Using Notebooks:

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS234134 

You can also use skeleton models to manage assembly of components  as well as other top down design tools such as master models and  mutibody models (Creo 7+).

P.S. please add the mapkey label to this post

[cgherghe-2]

Thank you for your reply, I will read that article! And I would love to add that label to my post, but I cannot figure out how to do it, I see the link to add tags, but I could not find a link to let me edit the label list. Please let me know how to do it and I will! 

[tbraxton]

I think you would have to edit the original post to add the label, there is a limited time to do that once it has posted. It is not a problem so don't worry about adding the label. The mapkey label is newly added  this week and we are trying to get people to start using it to organize threads for search, I will ask an admin to add it.

[Dale_Rosema]

Also, personally, I try to make most of my mapkeys left handed since I am a right handed mouser. That way your left hand is already on the keyboard.

(e.g. zxcv, zzxx, zzbb so on and so forth. - then I print a list (word doc) of mapkeys for everyone's reference.)