UI Styler

[Befuddled]

Does anyone know if it is possible to create a user interface / menu using the UI styler & then link this to a GRiP programme?

Cheers in Advance.

Befuddled

 

[JohnRBaker]

I think that the best that you could expect would be to create a program using the UI Sytler, which would collect that values of your parametric input and which options were selected and then pass these to the GRIP program via a varible list. But I don't think you could ever hope to perform any significant interactive operations using the UP Styler with GRIP as the underlying program.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[hudson888]

I'm not sure what you mean. The simplest possibility is that you have a grip program that you simply want use frequently. Then it is certainly possible to add it under an icon to one of your toolbars. It is also possible to run macros and other programs using the same technique, which may provide more powerful functions than grip would since it has become more or less a dead programming language within NX.

Regards

Hudson

 

[Befuddled]

The grip programe works fine, but the user interface for GRIP is rubbish.

The programme I have has about 30 options the user can modify. The problem with GRiP is the max number of options on a single menu is 14, so the alternate action button has been mapped to display the next menu. its functional but messy. I

I just wnated to know if it was possible to us a interface created with the UI styler i.e. one big menu, but running a grip programme in the background.

 

[JohnRBaker]

If that is all that you're trying to do, you could write a simple NX Open program using the UI Styler which asked for all of the parameters values, which you would write to an variable array which you could then launch your GRIP program from passing it the array with the values. You've have to modify the GRIP program to remove all of it's interactive steps and set up the variable passing scheme, but it could be done without a lot of work.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[psiwak]

Befuddled,

As John said. You should create new code in C with interactive dialog created in UI Styler. You can call to grip thru UF_call_grip function. Generaly if Grip code is big and complicated it worth extra work, if not I suggest write new code in C.

Regards
Siwy

 

[hudson888]

John, or anyone...

Can you inter-operate between excel and attributes. I don't know of a way, but if not then why not? I thought it might be another way out for users to store values that they want to pass back and forwards via the UI styler or Grip as the case may be. In that case they could use a spreadsheet as the input method.

This question has been raised on and off in different guises, and I keep on hearing about programming methods, but as yet I haven't seen any actual code, so while I acknowledge the viability of doing so in theory I struggle to actualize it. Like many I'm good enough a programmer to adapt existing code but it takes me too long to learn to build the code structures from scratch.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

The problem is GRIP can't access Excel. If you're looking for a scheme to pass large amounts of data between a GRIP program and the 'outside' world, including other programs, the only real medium are simple text files. GRIP can read and write text files and does support format statements so that you can make it easy to organize and get to data.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[hudson888]

John,

No I meant that last time I looked you could pass attributes to grip. What I don't know is whether you can interact between spreadsheets and attributes? I'm yet to see a way, but I'f be more than happy to stand corrected on that.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

Well certainly you can interface with a spreadsheet using the NX Open API or Knowledge Fusion, however, from within NX itself, using the Expression system you can READ the value of the cell of a spreadsheet and then pass that valvue to an Attribute. This has been possible since NX 4, but there's better support in NX 5 since Expressions can now support Strings as well as Numbers.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[psiwak]

Hudson,

I'm not sure that I understand question correct. But you can access to attributes thru spreadsheet. It is not ideal solution because it works very slow if you work on big assembly. Please run spreadsheet select Tools=>Exctract Attr. You can update modified attr by Tools==>Update UG part or Refresh Attr (I don't remember well)

 

[hudson888]

John,

There you go again confusing me. I haven't tried using string expressions for much other than to go, "Oh look that's nice". I wonder then can they be used instead of attributes for driving text under drafting etc...? Why have both at all? Why have them in the same place, since I don't suppose that strings and numbers can or do interact with one another? I genuinely suspect there are sound and good reasons for these things, and I'd love to about them so I can take advantage of what's on offer from the changes. In the past there have been quite a few things posted here which the system can almost do but not quite. It sounds like we may be close to being able to do some really powerful stuff by way of customization that doesn't require a Grip, VB or C program.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

There are good reasons for having both Attributes and Expressions even if some capabilities look and feel redundent. Granted, much of it is the result of legacy archtecture and schemes that we need to maintain since they are important to the way some of our oldest customers are using the system. True, if we were given the opportunity to start over, we probably would do things very differently, but alas it's unlikely that we will ever be given that opportunity. But that being said, we are moving forward on making the product work together better while enhancing those areas that we think will be strategic in the future.

This is why we invested in Knowledge-Based tools and one of those projects involved enhancing Expressions so that they can and do provide Knowledge-Based functionality directly to the user without the need for conventional programming. And since Expressions drive the size and shape of the model itself, it's the foundation for much of the parametric and feature-based nature of NX.

As for Attributes, their traditional role has been to both collect non-geometric information and data inside of NX and to share it with other applications.

Now it's true, that unlike Expressions or the Knowledge tools, Attributes have not seen any recent enhancements or changes, but that will soon change as there is an effort currently underway to reengineer the Attribute layer and make it more accessable and usable with ather aspects of NX as well as external applications. Now this will not be seen for a couple of releases yet, but the work is underway and it will payoff soon.




John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[DavidTolsma]

Simplest way is using KF. NX has an auto-detect on startup, so it looks for dlg files named the same as the DefClass. It does all the binding on startup. If you are formiliar with NX/Open then that would give you more options, but KF is super easy and can call any NX/Open program if needed.

-Dave Tolsma

http://groups.google.com/group/NX_CAX/