How to capture radial marking menu command?

[rogmitch]

I am trying to capture a command invoked by a radial menu control in VB.Net e.g.

RadialMenu.WestControl = _Application.CommandManager.ControlDefinitions("AppContextual_CancelCmd")

I tried UserInputEvents.OnActivateCommand and this captures other events OK  but does not fire if any of the radial menu controls are clicked.

Does anyone know a way around this problem?

Any help much appreciated.

Roger Mitchell

IV 2014 Prof SP1 VS 2013

[philippe.leefsma · Accepted solution]

Hi Roger,

You can use a similar approach than the one exposed in that blog post:

http://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2014/02/replacing-a-native-inventor-button-by-a-custom-o...

Create your own control definition, replace the radial menu button by your own and invoke the native Execute when the button gets clicked.

Philippe.

[rogmitch]

Hi Philippe,

Thank you very much for the help- it is much appreciated.  I will implement the custom button as you suggest.

Roger

[rogmitch]

Hi Phillipe,

I introduced your 'AdnCustomReplacementCmd' class into my addin and it works great.

As I want to capture, for example, the Cancel command on a radial menu I removed the StandardIcon and LargeIcon parameters from the button definition otherwise I get an exception.  So far so good.

My problem is that the "AppContextual_CancelCmd"  is ignored in the ReplaceNativeControls().  From what I can tell the UserInterfaceManager.AllReferencedControls is for only for the ribbon interface. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find another way to reference the radial control and subsitute the button.

Any further help would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Roger Mitchell

[philippe.leefsma]

The radial and linear menus are populated at runtime, so it's not possible to find references for all buttons during initialization.

I modified the blog sample so it works for radial menu now, although it doesn't handle the case where you would like to replace a button in a radial sub-menu. I'm not sure why the icons do not work, but you can definitely use your own, as illustrated in the following context menu sample:

http://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2012/05/customizing-radialmarkingmenu-and-linearmarkingm...

Regards,

Philippe.

[rogmitch]

Hi Phillipe,

Thank you for taking the time to update the class.  It is always good to learn new things and as an addin newbie I find the blogs paticularly helpful.

I will try and implement the revised code over the weekend.

Regards,

Roger 

[rogmitch]

Philippe,

Oops - sorry about the spellling of your name.  Somehow I managed to garble it mid-topic.

Roger

[rogmitch]

Hi Philippe,

I got the radial menu capture to work.  For your information I had to modify your code slightly as I found the 'InternalName' for the radial buttons is of the form 'AppNGX_command rather than 'AppContextual_command'.  By altering

If RadialMenu.EastControl.InternalName = _nativeButtonDef.InternalName Then

to 

If Mid(RadialMenu.EastControl.InternalName, InStr(RadialMenu.EastControl.InternalName, "_")) = Mid(_nativeButtonDef.InternalName, InStr(_nativeButtonDef.InternalName, "_")) Then

everything works fine.  

Once again thanks for your help

Roger

[rogmitch]

Addendum:

To prevent an exception if a radial command is not an 'AppNGX_command' use, for example:

If TypeOf (RadialMenu.WestControl) Is ControlDefinition Then
If RadialMenu.WestControl.InternalName.ToString.Contains("_") Then
If Mid(RadialMenu.WestControl.InternalName, InStr(RadialMenu.WestControl.InternalName, "_")) = Mid(_nativeButtonDef.InternalName, InStr(_nativeButtonDef.InternalName, "_")) Then
RadialMenu.WestControl = _customButtonDefinition
End If
End If

[RedTopTraining]

I found this very interesting, as the RadialMarkingMenu is populated on the fly, would it be possible to cature the name of any command that is run, for example when I right click in a new Part I get the following commands available: Fillet, Extrude, Revolve, Hole, New Sketch, Work Plane, Undo & Measure. If when one fo these was clicked I wanted a System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox to display this command name text string, would it be possible.

I can use the following event to capture the loading of the RadialMarkingMenu:

UserInputEvents inpEvents = inventorApplication.CommandManager.UserInputEvents;

inpEvents.OnRadialMarkingMenu += new Inventor.UserInputEventsSink_OnRadialMarkingMenuEventHandler(UIEvents_OnRadialMarkingMenu);

but I cant seem to find an event handler to handle the actual clicking on the Marking Menu once it is on display in the interface.

Any direction would be much appreciated.

[RedTopTraining]

Sorry,
I read it back and I see that recreating the commands with an event handler in them is the solution, are there any dangers in this?

[philippe.leefsma]

Hi

Your question is exactly what we've been answering in that forum thread. What do you mean by danger...? No it's a safe workaround and I don't see any easier way to achieve it. Nobody will get hurt, I'm pretty sure about that 🙂

Hope that helps,

Philippe.