Thanks for posting that, and it does look helpful, but not for the situation I described. I probably didn’t describe it very well. In my long Assemblies I frequently need to mate new components at one end, and the only other components anywhere close are ones that were inserted with linear patterns. All previous components that were inserted and mated may be 100’ or more away from where the new one needs to be.
Yes, that is a pain, especially when the model was put together nicely from the beginning and the updates (revisions) would have been straight forward. Now the move faces obliterate the feature structure that can be so useful in history based modeling. Being lazy today can cause someone else many hours of fixing time later.
There is a flip side. We have some examples of old sheet metal parts that are ~15 years old and are used all over the place in dozens of assemblies which are used in many assemblies higher up the tree. Many nice sheet metal features were not available at the time they were modeled and poor practices were used that limit the ability to make some simple changes such as moving a flange without loosing those much needed geometry IDs that are used by relationships/mates and drawing annotations. Move/rotate face can be very powerful in that case and reduce time to update where used by order of magnitude or more.
I don’t do this on a regular basis but have been in situations where it was very useful. For instance all of our weldments/casting have machine cuts color coded. That way you can look at the model and see if you’re machining away features you need or have surfaces that need to be machined that aren’t.
I’ve also used multi colors on complex assemblies where I need to see a multitude of various interactions. It’s nice to know what part is what sometimes.
But as a “General rule”, no, no colors.
I made the under defined sketch entities a bright obnoxious red color so that they would stand out better:
I knew about that functionality early on, coming over from non-parametric CAD that had 3-D. Using 3 or 4 views was the ONLY way to draw in 3D cad in Microstation (similar to Autocad).
The only use cases are like what you posted in SW, though, which are rare occurrences. You can use “Select Other” or usually find another method to do what you want without the extra View.
What’s wrong with under defined? Ya’ll have to quit dragging my blue lines! They’ll be fine!!
You guys would go nuts on my surface models. First you’d go nuts that half the sketches have something underdefined. And then you’d go nuts defining the endpoints of centerlines, spline points, endpoints of lines that only need to go past the material, etc…
As someone who underdefines a lot of stuff, I can tell you that something that is underdefined is less likely to move than something that is connected to the wrong thing.
Machine design is a different thing. Most or all features are solid, most or all lines have a geometrical purpose other than satisfying CAD requirements. For those models, I fully define, and even centerlines I try to set up so they are defined by the rest of the sketch.
I learned years ago that in many cases it’s not necessary to restrain the end points of center lines, and in fact, as long as the location of the line itself is fully defined the sketch will show as fully defined even if the end points aren’t. (I’m pretty sure I learned that part from Jerry Steiger, who some of you will remember from the old forum. He hasn’t been there in a while. I seem to remember he was switching jobs, and they used a different software.)
Sometimes that little status block lies.
Here’s another thing. If you use Convert Entities on an edge, the resulting line shows all black and the status bar shows Fully Defined. But, if you grab the endpoint of the line, you can drag it. Now you tell me, is that Fully Defined status worth anything at all? 
That behavior is actually designed in.
I remember reading a post from one of the Solidworks employees mentioning that the line is fully defined until you drag it. Then it isn’t. This is so that you can easily get a partial line or and extension.
Right, but it defeats the purpose of fully defining your sketch, and the confidence you have in the fully defined title. It doesn’t really mean it’s locked down. In fact there are settings that will change dimensions when you drag lines. So putting much stock in the revered black sketch is misplaced. Just getting it fully defined to have it fully defined is a fools errand. Give yourself the control you need.
Did you ever see how Solid Edge deals with dimensions? You can tell it which end of a linear dimension should move when changing. On the fly. Or maybe it changes symmetrically. You don’t have to go back and change all the relations in the sketch to change that behavior. It’s just another one of those brilliant things that someone else came up with and SW users just ignore.
Fully defined till it’s moved, up to then it is fully defined as stated. Very similar to “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
If you look at the definition of sound (sound produced by continuous and regular vibrations, as opposed to noise), it would make a sound as long as there is something there to hear it, animal, bird etc…
Blue lines are the same. Don’t move until they do. Don’t see the difference.
Blue lines don’t make no sound.
Hey, that’s my favorite feature…I remember missing that great when I went to NX for a few years. Convert/projecting sucked in NX…if you trimmed it it lost all relations. Might be better now…I hope.
It is fully defined…they just let you drag and break the condition. I wish I could do that elsewhere in fact.
It’s worth something. I’m just not sure how much.
In the case I listed above I like that I don’t get the (-) in front of the sketch if I don’t fully define the end points of construction lines. I don’t care at all about some things in the tree that bother other people (like numbered feature names that aren’t consecutive), but I don’t like to see that minus sign.
But, if you grab the endpoint of the line, you can drag it.
I complained before.
Told it is design feature.
Actually, I mostly agree, but I like to get people a little riled up. I’ve been through the whole gamut, from wild bohemian enamored with the freedom when I first started out, to strict authoritarian when I started teaching, doing support and consulting, to now, when if it’s broke, I’ll fix it, don’t wake me up unless it’s on fire.
And it depends on what I’m modeling. If I’m doing splines, I don’t even pretend to care, because no matter how locked down you think your spline is, there is always a way to eff it up without touching a dimension or a relation. If it’s lines, I make sure the dimensions and relations work together. But I’m not going to get my nose bent if someone misses a line that doesn’t matter.
You would be the one to complain about functionality like that. 
matt , it’s actually pretty straightforward. When entities are converted, they are all fully defined if they close off a contour. You cannot drag a corner or a line (see below).
But as soon as it is no longer closed, you can drag a point, but not a line (see below).
You could argue that it’s not consistent, but as long as there is no user input of dragging the point, it goes nowhere; even if there is another feature or external reference that attempts to force it. Now an under defined line, that will go places under the right circumstances.
