SolidWorks API Series 1 Programming & Automation Written by Luke Malpass AngelSix.com Published by AngelSix ©2011 Luke Malpass [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. Published by AngelSix – AngelSix.com Second Edition Trademark Information SolidWorks and PDMWorks are registered trademarks of SolidWorks Corporation. Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Contributors Throughout this project I have received many enthusiastic responses and people contributing their own ideas and knowledge to areas of this book. It has been a great experience and an eye opening one. Their enthusiasm towards this project has been a key driving factor in pushing me to do this. I just hope that I do not let any of them down. Introduction When I was first introduced to computers at the tender age of 9, I have always been intrigued how things worked. Not on a basic level of being told that if you write this portion of code, this will happen, but to know the reason for every line of code and its purpose. To know the reason why X comes before Y, and to analyse it and find its extremes, where it fails and to know its limitations. It is this drive for deeper understanding that has pushed me in every aspect of my life, to fully understand computers, electronics, people, and ultimately the universe. Whenever I come across something I do not understand, I take it upon myself to learn; learn through observation, through trial-and-error, through others, through experience. So far I would like to think I have succeeded in all that which I set out to understand. I have always had a unique way of thinking when it comes to computers and logic; I find most people learn programming through the process of finding a solution and remembering the answer, such as knowing that COS(1) = 0.5403, yet they do not know that . Whereas I feel most people simply remember coding, I like to fully understand it, to the point where I could tell you what would happen with code before even compiling it; I often write 1000’s lines of code before even compiling and testing it, as I already have in my head the architecture and theory of what is going to be output, and I simply translate my thoughts into writing. By writing this book I hope to pass on my understanding of computers and programming to the next generation. I would like to thank my parents for making me the person I am today, for giving me my morals and personality, and the drive in life that has lead me to this point. This book will be my first, aimed at sharing with people my ways of thinking and programming and hopefully to enlighten at least one person’s day. All feedback is greatly appreciated, please send comments to [email protected]. This book presumes the reader has a basic understanding of computer programming on some level, such as the knowledge of if, else, for, while statements, conditional statements and general computer skills, and is savvy with SolidWorks. I have tried to give the best explanation of all code provided on its purpose, and what the point of every line of code is. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it. CD CONTENT (case-sensitive link): http://www.angelsix.com/CODE/SW2008.zip Table of Contents The Basics ....................................................................... 11 Recording your first macro ................................ 12 Writing a macro from scratch ............................ 19 Connecting with Visual Studio Express ........................ 29 Download and Install Visual Studio Express ...... 30 Connect to SolidWorks in C#..............................31 Connect to SolidWorks in VB.Net ...................... 52 Starting SolidWorks Programming .............................. 59 Saving Drawing Sheets as DXF .......................... 60 Get Document Information ............................... 68 Displaying Document Information ..................... 77 Working with Selected Objects..................................... 89 Identifying Selected Objects ............................. 90 Mating Selected Objects ................................... 94 Setting Material of Selected Objects ................. 98 Manipulating Dimensions ................................. 101 Selecting Objects ............................................. 107 Setting a Selection Filter .................................. 112 Property Manager Pages .............................................. 113 Deriving the base class ..................................... 114 Adding items to the Page ................................ 128 Responding to events ...................................... 144 Traversing ..................................................................... 153 Traversing through an Assembly ..................... 154 Traversing through a Component.................... 159 Displaying the results ...................................... 164 Playing with Components and Features ........... 171 Custom Property Manager ........................................... 181 Acquiring a Custom Property Manager ........... 182 Adding Custom Properties .............................. 185 Deleting Custom Properties ............................ 188 Table of Contents Check Custom Property Existence ................... 190 Updating Custom Properties ............................ 194 The ConfigSearcher program .......................... 196 Working with Drawings ............................................... 207 Automatically create Drawing Sheet............... 208 Counting Views ................................................ 219 Printing Drawing Sheets ................................. 230 Add-ins ........................................................................ 249 The basics of an Add-in ....................................250 Removing Add-in entries ................................ 268 10