Extensible By Design » Extensible By Design

Finally An MS Office Addin For SolidWorks Enterprise PDM

Jeff Cope — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:00:38 +0000

Office2PDM addin for MS Office

Users have long enjoyed the ability to check their SolidWorks files into and out of the Enterprise PDM vault from directly inside of SolidWorks. This is because Enterprise PDM has something called the CAD Editor that is a SolidWorks Addin that runs directly inside of SolidWorks.

Extensible CAD Technologies has developed an office editor to enable users to work with their MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint files in exactly the same way. Currently, users must close their MS Office files and then operate on them in Windows explorer.

Although we haven’t released the application for sale just yet, we are very close. In the meantime, we are offering a free beta version on our website to anyone who is willing to try it out and give us feedback. You can download the beta version from here: Office2PDM Beta

Note: We still have a little work to do including the help file. Also, after you save a new document you must hit the Refresh button. This is a temporary workaround and will be resolved shortly.

Send all feedback to support@extensiblecad.com

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Come See Us At SolidWorks World

Jeff Cope — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:49:21 +0000

Extensible CAD will be exhibiting in booth #2 at SolidWorks World this year. We will be showing InspectionXpert for SolidWorks, InspectionXpert First-Article and Office2PDM. InspectionXpert is software that automates the creation of first article inspection sheets from CAD drawings. Office2PDM is an addin for MS Office that enables you to work with Enterprise PDM from inside of Word, Powerpoint and Excel.

I will also be presenting personally on Enterprise PDM Customization on Monday at 1:30pm. Unfortunately they scheduled me at the same time as Joy Garon’s What’s New In EPDM 2009 but that is just how it goes. Stop by my session if you can and if not, then stop by our booth and say hello.

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SolidWorks API Presentation – Beginner’s Guide To The API

Jeff Cope — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:40:11 +0000

From time to time I do presentations on the SolidWorks API and one that gets requested fairly often is the Beginner’s Guide To The API. I just presented this in Roanoke, VA at the Blue Ridge SolidWorks User’s Group headed up by Jeremy Marks. They were a good bunch of guys (although there was a University of North Carolina fan in attendance) and it seems like a well-run group. However, after risking my life to get there by driving through what seemed the rain-storm of the century on unfamiliar mountain highways with almost no visibility I have decided that in the future it might be safer for me to simply make the presentation available on my blog : )

beginners-guide-to-the-api

Also, the SolidWorks Autonumbering Macro (w/ MS Access Database) that I usually show has been written up for ConnectPress with a link to download the Macro and Database. You can view that article here:

http://www.solidworkscommunity.com/feature_full.php?cpfeatureid=32314

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EPDM Number Generator…Updated For 2009

Jeff Cope — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:04:21 +0000

Due to blackmail and extortion a request from my good friend Rohizzle, I have updated the popular Number Generator to work with 2009. I have not made any enhancements so you can refer to the previous version’s post for instructions.

Net: This is an addin for SolidWorks Entperprise PDM that enables users to pick, at run-time, the numbering sequence to use for auto-numbering.

2009 Version Download

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A Free Template For Creating PDMWorks Enterprise Addins – It’s Automagically Delicious

Jeff Cope — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:57:40 +0000

API development and customization is all about automating repetitive tasks and I am sometimes amazed at how much I have been able to do over the years to make end users’ daily tasks easier to accomplish. One place I have fallen short, however, is automating my own repetitive development tasks. That is why decided to create a Visual Studio Template to automate the creation of PDMWorks Enterprise Addins. This is similar to the SolidWorks Software Development Kit offered by SolidWorks for developing SolidWorks Addins.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Visual Studio Templates, they are very similar to SolidWorks Templates. Within SolidWorks Templates, you store things like unit information, material information and dimensioning standards information. Within Visual Studio Templates you store References, source code files (e.g. classes, modules, forms, etc…) and the like. Hitherto, if you wished to create a custom PDMWorks Enterprise Addin, you would create a generic Visual Studio Class Library, add a reference to the PDMWorks Enterprise Type Library (i.e. EDMLib), add a class file that implements the IEdmAddIn5 interface and then add your custom code to the GetAddinInfo and OnCmd event handlers. With the PDMWE Addin Template, all you have to do is select the PDMWE Addin template from Visual Studio’s New Project dialog. All the files and references are added automagically. It is ready to go and all you have to do is add your custom code to the GetAddinInfo and OnCmd event handlers. There is already some custom code there to for your reference. Currently, the Template is only available for Visual Basic but if some C# developer out there wants to send me a stubbed out PDMWorks Enterprise Addin written in C#, then I would be happy to package it into a Visual Studio Template.

This is going to save me a lot of time and I hope it will save you a lot of time too. I also hope it saves SolidWorks API Support a lot of time so that they can spend more time on my Service Requests : ) I guess on one level it is not so bright of me to make this thing public as it will also save time for my competitors in the PDMWorks Enterprise API Consulting world. It seemed like the right thing to do though considering all of the help that people have provided me with over the years. I hope you enjoy it. As always, if you use it, then I ask that you leave a comment with your feedback. It is a small price to pay.

Installing The PDMWorks Enterprise Addin Template

1. Download the installer from here and unzip it.

2. Run the installer. You should see these screens:

Note: The Addin Template will only be installed for the releases of Visual Studio that you have installed. Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 are supported. If the installation is unsuccessful, then you can follow the manual installation steps below.

Finished! Now you are ready to create your first Custom PDMWorks Enterprise Addin using the PDMWE Addin Template.

Creating Your First Addin With The PDMWE Addin Template

1. Launch Visual Studio.

2. Select Create Project from the Start Page or File, New, Project from the toolbar.

3. Select PDMWE Addin from the New Project dialog’s Visual Basic folder.

4. Provide a name for your new Addin and press the Ok button.

A new Addin is created for you with a functional PdmweAddin class and a reference to EDMLib. The Addin is functional as is and may be compiled and debugged before adding any additional code if you want to try it out.

Enjoy!

Manual Installation Steps For A Failed Installation

1. Go to the installation folder (C:\Program Files\Extensible CAD Technologies\PDMWE Addin Template\ is the default) and find the PDMWEAddin.zip file.

2. Copy the PdmweAddin.zip file to your Visual Basic Project Templates Folder . By default, this folder is located at My Documents\Visual Studio 200X\Templates\Project Templates\Visual Basic

You should now be ready to go!

Uninstalling The Template

To uninstall the PDMWE Addin Template, simply find “PDMWE Addin Template” on Add/Remove Programs and uninstall it from there.

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