SolidWorks

 In spite of all their positive benefits, which are many, more than a few SolidWorks users look upon custom properties with the same disdain that a pre-schooler would have for green leafy vegetables.  You can explain the benefits of custom properties, how they help you find things, how they lead to healthy drawing title blocks, how they improve PDM implementations, etc… until you are blue in the face and with some individuals you still won’t make a dent.  There might be a change for a few days even a few weeks but inevitably you are back to files with no custom properties filled out. 

In order to increase the life-expectancy of CAD administrators everywhere, I have posted a free .NET Add-In for SolidWorks that will “remind” your users to enter certain custom properties whenever they create a new file or save an existing one (after the initial save).  The list of custom properties is configurable and

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Father forgive me.  It has been two weeks since my last blog post.  I apologize everyone for the long interval but things have been crazy.  In addition to some long nights at my day job, I am in the process of releasing a new version of InspectionXpert, the Quality Inspection Sheet generating software from my company Extensible CAD.  It is a rewarding endeavor but also very demanding.

 Anyways… not so long ago I posted a Macro & tutorial on how to register for SolidWorks events.  One application of that technique that I mentioned was to automatically generate document numbers for your SolidWorks document and insert them into SolidWorks “auto-magically.”  Well, not too long thereafter I was bombarded with emails asking me to post that little Macro and I promised to do so.  This post is the fullfillment of that promise.  I’m sorry it took so long but I think you guys will like it.  I feel it is “auto-magically delicious” myself : )

 You can download the database and the macro from here.

Keep reading to see a flash video of the macro in action…

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Well, it’s over again.  Every year it just flies by in three blinks of the eye.  This year started out with a little irony (my connecting flight to Atlanta was cancelled due to inclement weather [30degrees F with snow] so I had to fly through Minneapolis instead where it was -15 F) but quickly turned into a great experience. 

My favorite thing about the conference was all of the people that I met.  I discovered that people do really read my blog (thank you Adrian from Intercad) and I met some of the other bloggers (although I am not really a blogger by the estimation of Richard Doyle of SolidWorks).  Some of the guys that I met were Lenny Kikstra of SolidWorks Macro fame, Josh Mings from SolidSmack (the best SolidWorks blog out there), Ricky Jordan and Ben Eadie of SolidMentor.  I also ran into a few of the bloggers that I had already met in person (e.g. Matt Lombard of SolidWorks Surfacing and SolidWorks Bible fame, Rob Rodriguez – the Grandmaster of PhotoWorks).

In addition to the great networking, I got to see a few really good presentations and a few duds.  My two favorite presentations were Michael Craffey’s presentation on regulatory compliance issues related to software and Jonathan Freeson’s presentation on developing PDMWorks Enterprise add-ins.   The stump the chump session was pretty good too even though some took advantage of the format by trying to get free consulting.  The major thing I got out of the stump the chump meeting though was that far fewer companies than I had previously thought have switched to SolidWorks 2008.  They don’t know what they are missing.

Finally, I got to see a few cool products that I am excited about.  My favorite is Template Wizard by 3Dawn.  The voice recognition software was pretty cool too.

Breakfast sucked as usual (hard bagels, fruit and yogurt just don’t do it for me in the morning).  I am excited that SolidWorks World will be back at Disney World again next year.  Mickey Mouse pancakes with eggs and bacon are my favorite!  See you next year.

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I will be in San Diego for my fourth SolidWorks World. If you see me there, then by all means say hello.

For those of you that have had positive feedback on the blog over the past few months, I appreciate it. It is for you that I write the blog. I hope someone finds it useful.

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Memory management in the COM world is a lot more straightforward in the COM world than it is in the .NET world.  Destroying COM references from .NET applications typically includes trial and error, calls to mysterious APIs, prayer and in the end, frustration.  It always reminds me of tying to kill a vampire, werewolf or some other bloodsucking, mythical creature that just won’t die.  It is because of this that my heart warmed with joy when I saw that some kind soul over at SolidWorks wrote a post to once and for all clarify how to destroy references to SolidWorks’  COM objects.

Tech Tip From SolidWorks On Destroying References To Unmanaged (i.e. COM) Components

 We have all heard about the promised land of .NET where you don’t have to worry about memory management.  The garbage collector handles all of the memory management for you.  You just instantiate your objects, use them and then forget them.  Santa Clause The .NET Garbage Collector determines when the objects are no longer needed and then destroys them and reallocates the memory.  Anyone who does API programming with SolidWorks in .NET either knows or should know that this is not the case for unmanaged (i.e.  COM) components (e.g. the SolidWorks class library used for interfacing with SolidWorks).  Some CAD systems (e.g. Unigraphics) have implemented a .NET API interface but SolidWorks still uses a COM  API interface.  This means that SolidWorks API developers using .NET must destroy SolidWorks objects “they d@mn self.” 

And remember…

…Even a man who is pure in heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.

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