automatic constraints in drawing mode sketching in CREO-2

[ccarrillo]

Hi, at my company we do a lot of sketching in the drawing mode, snapping to existing draft entities. My coworker has an old mapkey that automatically allows contraints as soon as he starts a line. The rest of us have to click line, click on the references (draft entities) we wish to use, and THEN we can snap to the line.

For instance, we want to sketch a line from the midpoint of an existing line. We need to:

1) Open the line command

2) When the "references" window pops up, click on the line that we want the midpoint (or endpoint) of.

3) accept the references we picked, then sketch the line from said references, and ONLY the references we picked.

My coworker however, does this:

1) uses his "magic" mapkey (which he has long since forgotten HOW he made!)

2) the "references" window does NOT pop up, rather the "selection point' window pops up instead, and he can automatically click on any endpoint or midpoint of any existing line.

Any clue as to how he made this mapkey?

Thanks!

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[TomD.inPDX]

Have a look in his config.pro to see what the keystroke is and the command path attached to them.

[dschenken]

You can copy his mapkey, unless he won't share.

[dgschaefer]

To clarify what Antonious & David are getting to, the mapkey is stored as plain text in his config.pro file. If you open his config.pro in a text editor like Notepad and search for the keys that he's entering to invoke his mapkey, you should be able to find it. Then you need to copy all the lines of his mapkey and paste it into your config.pro file and then restart Creo. Then you'll have the same mapkey he does.

[ccarrillo]

Thanks guys, yeah he's hard to get ahold of but I did get a copy of his config.pro file so I could at least copy/paste that mapkey. I'd still love to know how he made it, so I could make my own similar ones. The interesting thing is that it brings up the old side menu that pro-e supposedly no longer uses (but still clearly has somewhere in it's bowels, but keeps hidden!)

[TomD.inPDX]

Feel free to post the string for this mapkey here and we can try to dissect it.

[ccarrillo]

Thanks Antonius, I'll take you up on that!

Turns out there are actually two separate ones, one for horizontal and one for vertical, I'll paste them both here:

mapkey sv @MAPKEY_LABELdrawing sketch vertical;#detail;#sketch;#line;\

mapkey(continued) #vert line;#vertical;~ Select `dwg_selpnt_dlg` `rad_sel_method` 1 `vertex`;\

mapkey(continued) %pfsp;~ Activate `dwg_selpnt_dlg` `psh_ok`;%pfsp;\

mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `dwg_selpnt_dlg` `psh_ok`;%pfsp;\

mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `dwg_selpnt_dlg` `psh_ok`;

mapkey sh @MAPKEY_LABELsketch horizontal line;#detail;#sketch;#line;\

mapkey(continued) #horiz line;#horizontal;\

mapkey(continued) ~ Select `dwg_selpnt_dlg` `rad_sel_method` 1 `vertex`;%pfsp;\

mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `dwg_selpnt_dlg` `psh_ok`;%pfsp;\

mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `dwg_selpnt_dlg` `psh_ok`;

[TomD.inPDX · Accepted solution]

This is a great mapkey. Yes, it invokes a hidden menu item (the Pro|E xtop menu) to do sketching.

I suspect this is still supported due to other programming interfaces where entire development solutions can be created based on a few inputs. It wouldn't surprise me that the current ribbon menus still access these very straight forward (and greatly missed by many) xtop menus.

This mapkey works in formats as well. Basically, it is selecting all the default selections in the menu.

The replacement for this is the default unselected (?!) horizontal and vertical constraints in sketcher preferences while in the drawing.

But this is a great find. I can see a lot of old mapkeys awakening some highly beloved xtop menus.

Try this one...

mapkey sc @MAPKEY_LABELsketch circle;#detail;#sketch;#circle;

To invoke the xtop menu

mapkey sx @MAPKEY_LABELsketch with xtop;#detail;#sketch;

Oh, and even better... it works in symbol creation!

[ccarrillo]

That's it, thanks! That all makes sense, and I appreciate that "sx" mapkey, it's a great jumping-off point for making others.

Obviously a "back-door" fix, but it works great!

Thanks for your time on this!

[TomD.inPDX]

...And thank you for sharing