The mouse gesture wheel is a great tool for reducing mouse travel in SOLIDWORKS, placing commonly-used commands right at the mouse pointer.
In this blog, I will show you how to set up the wheel to maximize efficiency and minimize the learning curve.
In the example below, I’ve set up my gesture wheel for the sketch environment. There are four environments for the gesture wheel, and each environment utilizes a different set of commands. The four environments are: Part, Assembly, Drawing and Sketch.
To access the gesture wheel, right-click and move the mouse slightly in any direction. The wheel will appear, and you can then select a function by running the mouse over that icon. At that point, you can release your hold on the right-click.
Step 1: To set up the gesture wheel, right-click on a blank area in the command manager toolbar and select Customize.
Step 2: From here, navigate to the Mouse Gestures Tab. You will see four columns (one for each environment). Navigate to the command you want, click on a cell under the appropriate column, and use the drop down menu to set a gesture direction.
The upper right corner is where you can enable the wheel and define whether it will have four icons or eight.
The Print List button allows you to print a copy of all assigned gestures.
The category column allows you to filter lists of commands. The check box will filter only commands with assigned gestures. The search box is extremely useful here when hunting for commands. 
Tip: Organize your gesture wheel in a way that makes it easy to remember and use. In my example, the two most used functions are assigned to the Left and Right gesture as these are the easiest movements to make with the mouse. Then, I organized any sketching functions that create geometry from scratch to be at the top of the wheel and any functions that reuses or requires existing geometry at the bottom.
The gesture wheel can take several days to get used to, but keep at it and you will be flying through designs in no time.
Want to see a step-by-step tutorial of how I set up my gesture wheel? Check out the video below!
The gesture wheel can take several days to get used to, but keep at it and you will be flying through designs in no time!
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