Hi,
Yep, you are correct! Visual Studio is the compiler/IDE of choice for OTK Toolkit.
To answer your questions:
- otk_install_app
- This is an example application provided by PTC, it has a few example applications, and if I remember correctly, I believe it has the source code to match as well. It's a great resource for learning!
- creotk.dat
- The ".dat" file is the way to get Creo Parametric to load your toolkit applications. You can The name of the .dat file does not matter at all (for instance, we call ours, "cadactive.dat")
- The "manual" way to load the Toolkit application is through the "Aux Applications" button in the ribbon of Creo P
- The "automatic" way to load the Toolkit application (where the app is loaded when Creo loads) is to configure a config.pro setting for "creotkdat" (or "protkdat") to point to the ".dat" file that you have created.
- The file only contains a few required lines - which point to the binary (the DLL or EXE) as well as the "TXT Directory" (which is used for any resources required for your toolkit application, such as images, icons, GUI resource files, etc)
- otk_install.sln
- This is an example visual studio solution created by PTC. If I remember correctly, you should only really need to set a windows Environment Variable in order to get the solution to recognize the C++ libraries and Header Files.
- Otherwise, to start a new Visual Studio project from scratch, you can set the project properties (or create Visual Studio Property Sheets) to point to the required folders and settings.
Another thing to note, is that you'll need the correct VERSION of Visual Studio.
- Creo 2 = Visual Studio 2010
- Creo 3 = Visual Studio 2012
- Creo 4 & 5 = Visual Studio 2015
You can still USE a newer version of Visual Studio (such as VS 2017), however the "Platform Toolset" used to compile against the PTC libraries in the project will need to be per the appropriate version of Creo.
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
James Sullivan
