Tech Tip: 5 More Ways the Shift Key Speeds Up Onshape

Shift is the busiest modifier key in Onshape. It runs most of your sketch constraints, all seven standard views, your visibility controls, and range selection in lists. It does not do the one thing most people coming from other CAD systems expect it to do, which trips up new users. Here is the rest of the story.

1. Most Sketch Constraints Live on Shift

Open a sketch and look at what Shift gets you. The single-letter keys cover the constraints you reach for every few seconds: horizontal (H), vertical (V), coincident (I), tangent (T), equal (E), parallel (B). All other constraints are used with the Shift key by default.

Learn Shift + M and Shift + Q first. Midpoint and symmetric are the two constraints that keep a sketch behaving when dimensions change later. They are the two constraints most often skipped because they are buried in the toolbar.

2. Shift + A Switches Between Line and Tangent Arc Mid-Sketch

You are drawing a slot profile. Line, then arc, then line, then arc. Most people finish the line, go back to the toolbar, pick the Arc tool, come back, then repeat. That is four mouse trips for one profile. (There is also a Slot tool, but that’s another Tech Tip.)

Instead, while you are still drawing, tap Shift + A. The tool switches from line to tangent arc without breaking the chain, and the arc comes in tangent to the segment you just placed. Tap Shift + A again, and you are back to lines.

3. Shift Owns Your Views and Visibility

All seven standard views are accessed with Shift + a number key. This works for 3D views not only in Part Studios or Assemblies (including while running Simulations), but also in Render Studio.

Shift also controls what you can see through and what you can see at all. Shift + T makes the selected or hovered instance transparent. Shift + I isolates it by making everything around it transparent. Shift + Y brings hidden instances back. Shift + H toggles sketches. Shift + P hides construction geometry. Shift + X opens the Section view dialog, and it takes multiple planes.

One more shortcut that saves real time on large assemblies: Shift + an arrow key rotates the model 90 degrees. Plain arrow keys rotate 15 degrees, and Ctrl + an arrow key rotates 5 degrees. Three levels of precision, no mouse needed.

4. Shift + Click Selects a Range in Lists

Here is where Shift does behave the way you expect, in exactly one place.

In any list, the Feature list, the Instance list, the Parts list; click the first item you want, then Shift + click the last one. Everything between the two gets selected. Handy when you need to suppress a block of 20 features or delete a run of instances.

Note that this is list behavior only. In the graphics area, Shift + click does not extend a selection, which brings us to the part that confuses new users.

5. You Never Need Shift to Multi-Select.

If you came from SOLIDWORKS, Creo, Inventor, or NX, your hands already know the pattern: click, then hold Ctrl or Shift for each subsequent item. In Onshape, drop that habit.

Onshape selection is additive. Click a face, it is selected. Click a second face, both are selected. Click a tenth, all ten are selected. No modifier key at any point.

This is not an oversight. Onshape runs in a browser on your desktop, and it runs natively on an iPad and an iPhone. An iPad has no Shift key without the keyboard installed. Any selection model that depends on a modifier either breaks on touch or forces two different sets of muscle memory for the same product. Additive selection has one behavior everywhere: tap to add on the iPad, click to add on the desktop, same result. It also happens to use fewer keystrokes on the desktop, which is why plenty of longtime users prefer it once the habit rewires.

The catch is that if selection is additive, you need to know how to take things back out.

On desktop:

• Click the entity again to remove just that one from the set. Selection is a toggle, so the same click that added it removes it.
• Ctrl + drag across entities to sweep several out of the selection at once. This works in Part Studios and Assemblies.
• Press the spacebar to clear the whole selection set. This is the one to memorize. It works in the graphics area and inside an open feature dialog, so it can also easily reset any overloaded query fields.
• Click in empty space, or right-click and choose Clear selection.

On iPad and iPhone:

• Tap the entity again to remove it.
• Double tap anywhere in the graphics area with one finger to clear everything.
• Two-finger press and hold to start a box select, then pinch before lifting your fingers to size the box.

The spacebar is the single highest-value key in this entire Tech Tip. Users who never learn it end up zooming out just to find empty space to click. Users who do learn it stop thinking about selection entirely.

One Last Wrinkle: Same Key, Different Tab

Shift + S opens the Sketch tool in a Part Studio. In an Assembly, the same combination toggles Snap mode. Shift + F is Fillet in a Part Studio and Sketch fillet inside a sketch. Shift + D is Dihedral analysis in general, and the Diameter dimension tool in a drawing.

The shortcut map is scoped per tab type. If a combination does something unexpected, check which tab you are in before you go hunting through preferences.

You can pull up the full map any time with Shift + /, and you can remap almost all of it under My account > Preferences > Keyboard shortcuts.

More Ways to Work Faster in Onshape

If you missed the first installment, start with 2 Ways the Shift Key Can Increase Productivity in Onshape, which covers locking mate inferencing and suppressing sketch inferencing.

From there, Shortcuts That Reduce Mouse Travel and Clicks chains Shift + E and Shift + F into a full modeling flow, and Using Shift and Enter to Repeat Commands covers back-to-back features without a toolbar trip.

On selection specifically, Getting the Right Selection covers Select Other and the Create Selection tool, and Using Box or Drag Selection in Onshape Sketches explains enclosing versus crossing boxes.

If you want to remap any of this, see Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts in Onshape.