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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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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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PDMWE Number Generator – Part Deaux

Jeff Cope — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:40:54 +0000

Over the past few months I have received numerous emails from folks using the original PDMWE Number Generator. It is such a simple little app that I was pleasantly surprised at all of the nice feedback people gave me regarding it. To show my appreciation, I have modified the Number Generator to allow it to work with multiple serial number sequences ”on the fly.”

You have always had the ability to set up muliple serial number generators in PDMWorks Enterprise but now the user can decide at File/Folder creation time which serial number to use. An anticipated use case with this improved version of the tools is for users who have multiple categories of parts with numbers being assigned by category. Note: Even though the functionality has been expanded, the tool is still very easy to install and configure.

So how does it work?

The Number Generator is a PDMWorks Enterprise add-in that runs whenever a user presses a command button (from a data card) that is configured to “call” it. The Number Generator downloads the latest copy of the ListItems.xml file from your vault’s Options folder and checks it for List Items. Each element in the XML file has a element and corresponding element. The elements represent what the users sees in the Number Generator’s drop-down list and the elements represent the Serial Number sequence that is “called” whenever a user selects that item from the drop-down list. There is no reasonable limit to the number of serial number sequences that can be supported by the Number Generator. Just add a new node to the ListItems.xml file, being careful to type the exact name of the Serial Number sequence in the node.

Don’t be afraid of the xml. It is really simple. Here is the xml file that was used to develop and test the Number Generator. Notice that the text contained in the nodes of the ListItems are an exact match for the names of the Serial Number sequences in the vault.

Alright… Ready to get started? Good. Here are the high-level installation and configuration steps:

Download and unzip the file containing the tool.
Create any desired serial number sequences using the PDMWorks Enterprise Administration Tool.
Add the included add-in to the PDMWorks Enterprise Add-ins using the PDMWorks Enterprise Administration Tool.
Using Notepad or (better) an XML editor such as XML Notepad, edit the ListItems.xml file that is included in the Options folder to include your desired serial number sequences.
Copy the included Options folder to the root of your PDMWorks Enterprise vault.
Checkin the ListItems.xml file, if not done automatically.
Give all users Read Only permissions to the Options folder.
Add a command button to any data card you wish to run the Number Generator from and configure the command button to “call” the Number Generator.
Test it out and if it works well for you, then add some nice feedback to this post. Otherwise, curse me under your breath and keep it to yourself.

Here are the detailed steps:

Download the file containing the tool from here. Unzip it once it is downloaded. It should contain two dll files (Interop.EdmLib.dll and NumberGeneratorForPDMWE2008.dll) and an Options folder which in turn contains a single xml file (ListItems.xml).
Create any desired serial number sequences using the PDMWorks Enterprise Administration Tool. Keep track of the names of the Serial Number sequences as you will need this information for step four.
Add the included add-in to the PDMWorks Enterprise Add-ins using the PDMWorks Enterprise Administration Tool. Use the New button to add the Add-in’s dll files to the vault. Make sure you select BOTH dll files to add. Don’t worry about the warning message that PDMWorks Enterprise gives you after you add the dlls. The warning message is just letting you know that you have to reboot when updating the same Add-in to a later version. I changed the name of this add-in from the previous version so that won’t be an issue here.
Using Notepad or (better) an XML editor such as XML Notepad, edit the ListItems.xml file that is included in the Options folder to include your desired serial number sequences. Notepad can be used but I am partial to XML Notepad as seen below. XML Notepad is a totally free utility from Microsoft and can be downloaded from here. If using Notepad, be very careful to preserve the format of the XML file. Each element tag must be closed by a corresponding element tag. The same goes true for the and element tags.
Copy the included Options folder to the root of your PDMWorks Enterprise vault. I want to emphasize the “to the ROOT of your vault” part of that. If your vault’s local view is found at “C:\PDMWE\MyVault” then your Options folder should be found at “C:\PDMWE\MyVault\Options.”
Checkin the ListItems.xml file, if not done automatically.
Give all users Read Only permissions to the Options folder.
Add a command button to any data card you wish to run the Number Generator from and configure the command button to “call” the Number Generator.
Test it out and if it works well for you, then add some nice feedback to this post. Otherwise, curse me under your breath and keep it to yourself.

You can hit the “Copy” button to copy the auto-generated number to the clipboard. You can then paste it anywhere you want (e.g. filename, data card variable, etc…).

If you or someone you know use(s) this thing and find it helpful, then give us a holler in the comments section below. Thanks.

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