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1-Visitor
August 26, 2008
Question

Visual API

  • August 26, 2008
  • 2 replies
  • 756 views
Hello,

Anyone used Visual API with ProE and can share experience or have an easy
example to start with. Think I will leave trailfiles for my adaptions if I
manage to start using Visual instead.

Thanks.

Best regards,
Magnus Persson
Dynapac

    2 replies

    10-Marble
    August 27, 2008
    I believe you can find examples in the API's wizard found under your
    installation directory like with the other APIs.

    I have not used Visual API, but have learned from PTCUSER that it only
    supports asynchronous mode which makes it a rather slow API compared to
    APIs supporting synchronous mode. It is build on the same foundation
    classes and has the same limitations as J-Link and Web-Link, meaning that
    e.g. feature creation is not possible except UDFs.

    Regards,
    Bjarne Frandsen



    "Magnus Persson" <->
    26-08-2008 09:08
    Please respond to
    "Magnus Persson" <->


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    [proecad] - Visual API







    Hello,

    Anyone used Visual API with ProE and can share experience or have an easy
    example to start with. Think I will leave trailfiles for my adaptions if I
    manage to start using Visual instead.

    Thanks.

    Best regards,
    Magnus Persson
    Dynapac-----End Original Message-----
    1-Visitor
    August 28, 2008

    > Anyone used Visual API with ProE and can share experience or have an easy
    > example to start with.


    Check out these examples/discussion about VB API:

    http://inversionconsulting.blogspot.com/2008/06/proe-visual-basic-api-first-look.html

    http://inversionconsulting.blogspot.com/2008/06/proe-vb-api-not-just-for-visual-basic.html


    Included are some important caveats not explained well in the documentation.
    Definitely check out the documentation as there are some examples in there.


    > ... Think I will leave trailfiles for my adaptions
    > if I manage to start using Visual instead.


    Don't give up on trail files just yet! While all of the API's let you get
    straight to the data you need, not every last action can be performed. This
    includes VB API, J-Link, Pro/WebLink, as well as Pro/Toolkit. For example,
    until recently, none of the API's could tell you what the active drawing model
    was for a drawing.

    If you can do what you need with trail files, there may be no added benefit to
    using any of the API's. It just depends on what you need to do.

    In terms of data conversion, it's super easy to have a trail file perform the
    Save A Copy action, but involves quite a bit of code using the API's. On the
    other hand, if you need to add parameters to all models in an assembly, chances
    are one of the API's will allow you to perform this 100x easier than with a
    trail file or mapkey.


    Those not familiar with trail files can check out the start of my ongoing series
    on trail files at:

    http://inversionconsulting.blogspot.com/2008/05/proe-anatomy-of-trail-file-part-1.html



    Marc
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