Hidden Feature Tree Items

SOLIDWORKS, by default hides Feature Tree Items based on certain criteria to save you space in the Feature Manager Tree.  For instance, the Equations folder is hidden until an equation exists in the file.  Another common example is the Solid and Surface Bodies folders are hidden if there are one or fewer surface or solid bodies in a file.  However, a lot of these items often have easy to use right mouse click features that you might want to access even when the folders aren’t visible.  This, for myself is especially the case when creating equations in a file.
Well, SOLIDWORKS offers two different ways to address this.  The first thing you can do to access the shortcut menus is to use the Hidden Tree Items option.  Whenever you right mouse click on the document icon at the top of the Feature Manager Tree, you can choose Hidden Tree Items from the list.  This will then present you with a list of the hidden folders.  From there, you can choose any of the folders and a list of the Shortcuts for those folders will be available.  Keep in mind, that some folders don’t have any, or have limited options available unless something actually exists within them.
The other option is to change the the display of these folders from System Options.  In this way, you can choose to always show or hide a specific folder.  Likewise, the option that specifies that these folders are hidden until they contain something is the choice ‘Automatic’.  You will notice most folders are set to use this by default, and that is ultimately what is causing this behavior.  These options can be found by navigating to System Options, then choosing Feature Manager from the list on the left as shown below.

Hopefully, this was a valuable question, and as always, make sure to visit MySolidWorks to get more questions like these answered!