topic Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties in Inventor Programming Forum

iLogic and Custom iProperties

douthett — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 19:49:03 GMT

Inventor 2014

I'm just starting to learn iLogic so I'm going to ask some stupid questions.

We need to add some custom iproperties to our files. Some files already has these iproperties and they're filled in; others do not. What I want is to have iLogic enter the missing iproperties and ignore the ones that are there and filled in.

What I've tried so far:

Dim oCustProp As Inventor.Property

iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = False

if iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = True Then

Else

iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = False

End if

The problem is that every time I save it changes the Critical iproperty back to False. What am I doing wrong? I've attached the reset of my codes to this threads. These work.

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

douthett — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 19:47:21 GMT

I really hate how sometime Autodesk screws up my text. When I wrote this I did have paragraghs so it would be easier to read

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

MechMachineMan — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:21:15 GMT

DO you have the code set to run on an event trigger that is running the code?

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

douthett — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:37:17 GMT

I'm using the iLogic code inside of Design Checker. It's triggered when I save the part/assembly

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

MechMachineMan — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:49:29 GMT

So have your code written is telling it to write it as false every time.
It should be inside of an if statement if you want it to be conditional.

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

douthett — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 23:42:51 GMT

ok so how do I do that? I've rather clueless.

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

MechMachineMan — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 13:08:07 GMT

Dim oCustProp As Inventor.Property
iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = False ' THIS LINE IS NOT CONDTIONAL AND WILL THUS SET THE iPROP TO FALSE EVERY TIME.

if iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = True Then ' THIS WILL NEVER RUN AS IT IS ALWAYS SET TO FALSE ABOVE
Else
iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = False ' THIS WILL ALWAYS BE TRUE BECAUSE IT IS SET TO FALSE ABOVE
End if

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

douthett — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 13:28:15 GMT

So you're saying that there is no way to get a code to put in the custom iproperties if it's missing and to have it never change the value if it's different than the default.

Pleae remember I'm just leanring this. It's been almost 25 yrs sicne I last programed

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

MechMachineMan — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 13:35:58 GMT

If iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = <> "" 'If Critical Is Not Empty

'Do Nothing

Else 'Otherwise

iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = False 'It is obviously not critical and will thus be false
End if

Something like that might work for you. It might throw an error if the Critical Doesn't exist'; i'm not completely sure. But in that case, you would just need:

Try

If iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = <> "" 'If Critical Is Not Empty

'Do Nothing

Else 'Otherwise

iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = False 'It is obviously not critical and will thus be false
End if

Catch

iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = False 'It is obviously not critical and will thus be false

End Try

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

Curtis_Waguespack — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:53:24 GMT

Hi douthett,

Here is an iLogic rule similar to what @MechMachineMan posted (his rule gave me an error, but the idea was directionally correct).

This rule is looking for a custom Text iproperty called Critical.

Try 'try to read the custom iproperty
    If iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = "" Then 'If Critical Is Empty
    'get user input
    oAnswer = MessageBox.Show("Is this critical?", "iLogic", _
    MessageBoxButtons.YesNoCancel)
        If oAnswer = vbCancel Then
        Return 'exit the rule
        Else If oAnswer = vbYes
        iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = "Critical"
        Else
        iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical") = "Not Critical"
        End If
    Else 'If Critical Is NOT Empty    
    'Do Nothing
    End if
Catch 'catch the error is the property doesn't exist
    MessageBox.Show("No custom iproperty named Critical found.", "iLogic")
End Try

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

douthett — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 14:29:55 GMT

Sorry I haven't replied until now. Was on a HOT project.

I was looking at your code and the only problem I can see is that Critical needs to be in Yes/No type.

Since the field is never empty... i don't think this would work.

Some of my early code would put in teh custom iproperties critical if it was missing but the problem was that if I changed it to say Yes (true) the code would change it back to No (false)

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

Daren.Lawrence — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 18:48:47 GMT

Hi Amy,

Here's a slight twist on the code Curtis has to match what you've written in your reply:

'    for yes/no, you must define it as a boolean data type
    Dim bAnswer As Boolean
    'This will ask the user for input via a yes/no radio input box with default
    'set to "no"
    bAnswer = InputRadioBox("Is this Critical?", "Yes", "No", False, "iLogic")
        iProperties.Value("Custom", "Critical") = bAnswer
'''        You can add this to the Try/End Try code Curtis has given
'''         But if you're positive it's always going to be there, you can 
'''         also just use these few lines AS your iLogic code. I'd say that's
'''         a little dangerous though to be honest.

Daren

Re: iLogic and Custom iProperties

Daren.Lawrence — Fri, 01 May 2015 13:08:14 GMT

' For yes/no, you must define it as a boolean data type

Dim bAnswer As Boolean = False 'default it to "No" or set to True for "Yes"

Try

Dim bExists As String ' If the custom property exists, we'll look at it as a string

'Report on current custom property value with a message box

bExists = iProperties.Value("Custom","Critical")

MessageBox.Show(bExists, "'Critical' Value?")

'Return '**Or uncomment this "Return" and comment the line directly above if the

'dialog box gets annoying

Catch 'the Catch just says, "if there's an error" meaning, we'll write the

'property if it errors out and can't find the iProperty existing

'This next part will ask the user for input via a yes/no radio input box

'with default set to "no"

bAnswer = InputRadioBox("Is this Critical?", "Yes", "No", False, "Critical?")

iProperties.Value("Custom", "Critical") = bAnswer

End Try '3 elements needed: Try, Catch and End Try

' This is a way to do it from scratch by the sounds of what you want.

Daren