Finding "Where Used" or recreating the "Open Drawing" command using the API

[RPdAnjou]

Hi,

I know there are a few posts about "where used" and opening/printing drawings of all components in a assembly, but to be as flexible as possible I would like to ask about this issue a bit more specific. 

The RMB command "Open Drawing" will open the drawing that uses the component.

My question is, how can I reproduce this behavior trough the API?

Even more interesting would be, how can I get a reference to the "Where Used" components. I know components don't know where they are used, but how do I figure this out the easy way with the API.

Can this be done by calling this command directly or can I maybe use the "Design Assistant" trough the API?

My expectation would be that the "Design Assistant" functionalities will be available trough the Inventor API, is this true?

I do not want to search trough the projects search paths with custom code.

The first function I want to use this for is:

When I loop trough the Structured BOM, I would like to open and print all drawings related to the components represented in this BOM view.

Thanks in advance.

[xiaodong_liang]

Could you have a look at this blog if it answered your question. It is written by Brian, our API expert .

http://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/11/file-references-part-2.html

[RPdAnjou]

That's something I did not find when searching for information about this topic.

While reading the blog:

At first I thought, hey, that's just like other solutions I found don the autodesk customization forum.

But then I also realized, when I open the drawing of a part, it does not have the same name!

We use Productstream Pro (where we can also find Where Used drawings, but that aside) and all documents get unique file names.

So a IDW will never have the same file name as the IPT or IAM.

Are you sure this function only checks file names? I think it also checks referenced files from all found IDW's.

Also, this is not a solution in VBA/.NET because this (Open Drawing) is not a API function, or is it?

Thanks for the info!