New to J-Link - Could use a little help?

[MarkBohannon]

I am a mechanical engineer that likes to program on occassion. Ihave used mapkeys, trailfiles and UI scripting to solve various repetitive tasks in Pro/E and Intralink.Now I would like to begin using J-Link programming tohandle some repetitivePro/E tasks that aren't well suited to mapkeysor trailfiles. I was able to get thesource files for the InstallTest sample applicationto compile and the auxilary application starts when I open Pro/E however I do not see any new menu selections in the File menu as advertised in the User Guide. Can anyone provide any pointers on potential problems? Thanks in advance.

I am currently looking to use J-Link to do the following as my first projects:

1) Add a new menu selection for a mark-up note that automatically
places the noteon a special layer and uses a special text formatting.

2)Add a menu selection allowing a user to update existing drawing tables.
We have a new format the replaces the EC history notes with parameters.
I want to grab the contents of the table on the first sheet and write the info.
to parameters, then replace the the format with the latest version on all sheets.

Regards,
Mark Bohannon
IBM

[gmontgomery]

Mark,In my experience the two most common stumbling blocks with JLink are:1) proper configuration of the protkdat to correctly point tothe message file under the text directory in your application.2) classpath. When the classpath is not set correctly in the Pro/E session, pro won't be able to find the class files. Be sure the directory containing the StartInstallTest.class file is appended to your classpath variable at some point in your startup script. Tip: you can also use the config.pro option add_java_class_path to accomplish the same thing, e.g. add_java_class_path X:\toolkit\tubebend\tubebend.jarBoth of the above are especially hard to troubleshoot because in either case Pro/E won't give you any hints.I would say to check number 1 in your case. Generally when the class compiles correctly, AND loads correctly as in from the 'Auxiliary Applications' dialog Run command but does not produce the desired menu button, it's because the protkdat does not point to the correct location for the message file. For me, the message file was the hardest part of 'getting started'. It took me a great deal of trial and error to even understand the necessary format.In the install_test protk.dat make sure that ...name InstallTest
startup java
java_app_class StartInstallTest
java_app_start start
java_app_stop stop
allow_stop true
delay_start false
text_dir ./text // this could be the problem
end... text_dir points to the directory that contains the message file, not the text dir itself. For example, I use:name tubebend
startup java
java_app_class tubebend.RunTubeBend
java_app_start start
java_app_stop stop
text_dir X:\toolkit\tubebend
allow_stop true
delay_start false
endwhereasthe actual path to my message file is : X:\toolkit\tubebend\text\usascii\cce_menu.txtIt seems that Pro/E will look into the directory specified to find the text dir, from there it will then look into the usascii dir where it will then find your message file.Hope this helps.Greg Montgomery
Information Technology Analyst
300 N. Vine Street, Horicon, WI 53032 USA
920-485-5548
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