How to start with Toolkit developement?

[Florian0205]

Hey,

I started to work with Creo Parametric Toolkit (C) a week ago. I have managed to understand the whole process of registering applications, working with makefiles and I read the first 80 pages of "tkuse.pdf" (the C-Documentation).

Now I want to start developing my own application, but I find it very hard to understand examples like "pt_userguide" which contain a lot of .c files (with hundrets of lines) which are somehow connected to each other...

How did you start with Toolkit or do you have any suggestion how I can understand the progress of making a TK-Application step by step?

Thanks in advance,

Florian

[DavidBigelow]

If you are developing for your company (or yourself if you have a license) - then you need to look at the FREE APIs or the Purchased Options from PTC.

If you are looking to develop a commercial application (sell to other individuals or customers) - you need a partner relationship with PTC.

Depending on what you are looking to accomplish... if it is relatively simple - you might consider CREOSON as a starting point to develop something quick and easy... CREOSON has plenty of functions, easier to use than JLINK or Toolkit-based APIs.

If you are looking to develop something for internal usage - and are comfortable with Excel.... Nitro-CELL is quite popular for data/process flow types of applications.

[Florian0205]

Thanks for your answer! Is there any problem if I want to distribute a CREOSON application to my colleagues compared to usual TK applications? (I´m working in a company)

[DavidBigelow · Accepted solution]

IF it is a commercial application or distribution -OUTSIDE- of you/your company's purchase of CREO and any toolkits that come with it (or you purchase from PTC) ... then you need a relationship with PTC (permission).

CREOSON (OpenSource) uses JLINK as the main interface for connecting and transacting with CREO.

JLINK is distributed with Creo for FREE and you can develop and distribute applications -INTERNALLY- for FREE.   So CREOSON can be distributed -INTERNALLY- also for FREE.

We obtained special permission from PTC to release CREOSON, so that is why you are able to use it internally like JLINK or any other FREE API they provide (e.g. VB, WebLink). CREOSON just provides a highly optimized API to JLINK, easier to use, less code, remote capabilities baked in, support for non-standard languages like Python (CREOPYSON), JavaScript (HTML / Node.js) , etc.

Hope that makes sense / is more clear.

Dave