I have been using nothing but Solidworks and HSMxpress for my aluminum milling and it is a great combo. I do run a TinyG on the Shapeoko but HSMXpress outputs gcode with little effort and allows full control of 2.5d toolpaths with ease over all. I have done a fair bit of rather complex 2.5 d milling on it and it has turned out great so far. With a little bit of online reading you can get going with CAm in HSMXpress pretty fast. The level of control it offers really allows you to do some great milling jobs in aluminum.
