Where or How would I get started creating a form that has the entry fields "in" the image?

[chris]

I'm trying to set up a form that would allow me have the entry field located where the current "Letter" is shown on the form (see image). I don't really need to see the "Group1" as much as I want the user to just be able to type in their dimension on the image to save time and confusion. What is the level of difficulty for form like that? (I don't know VBA)

EDIT: I do not paying someone to help me get started. I have a few forms that need to be created.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

Start using Vb.net or equal. Maybe the best way to start with an add-in.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

And use inputboxes!

[JelteDeJong]

I think you have 3 options:

It's possible to create forms in iLogic. You have to write all the code for creating a form manually. That is not simple but you don't need any other tools. @WCrihfield  did have some created articles about that. But I don't know where it went.

You can create an addin. This might be the most difficult option but also the most flexible option. You can find a tutorial here: http://www.hjalte.nl/tutorials

Last you can create a dll using Visual Studio. With VS it's easy to create a form of your liking. (You can take parts from the addin tutorial to create the adin.) Then you can call your form from an iLogic rule. That iLogic rule would look something like this:

AddReference "MyAssembly.dll"
Imports My.NameSpace

Dim myForm As New MyForm()
myForm.Show()

[WCrihfield]

Hi guys.  Autodesk took down all 'user' authored articles in the 'knowledge.autodesk.com' domain back around March 8-10 this year.  Ahead of that date, we were instructed to copy our content elsewhere or it would be lost.  I think I had somewhere in the range of 34 to 38 articles in there at the time, so for the sake of expediency I just choose to copy the contents of the better ones to new local Microsoft Word documents, then made PDF's out of them.  That way I can just attach the PDF file in a post once in a while, instead of a link.  Those articles were pretty limited by character count though, and did not allow most types of attachments, so the content had to be brief.

Creating a good looking and fully functional Windows form from scratch within an iLogic rule is definitely not the easiest way to do things, but once the initial work is done, it can be pretty rewarding, and without much 'overhead' at all.  Then if you wanted to take it another step higher, the Class you create for the Form can be placed into an external rule, with the option set to 'Straight VB Code', and then referenced from another rule using 'AddVbFile' (followed by the name of that external rule) within the 'Header' of the rule, so that you can call it to show from another rule.  But as Jelte mentioned, if you are good with vb.net, have Visual Studio installed, and can create your own DLL's, it could certainly be done much easier that way.

Attached are two PDF's that were created from two of my old articles which both included creating & using Windows Forms within their iLogic rules.  I have not had the chance to update them since that point, so they may be a little 'rough around the edges'.  The one working with iProperties was created before the whole 'ModelStates' complication was an issue, so it likely needs a version 2.0 now.  There were others too, but they were more customized for my work use, so I chose not post them online.  I hope these may help out a little.  I have not attempted to coordinate the design/layout of a Form to fit specific locations of a custom background image like that before though.

[chris]

@WCrihfield I just added an "Ideas" about this, the basic forms are good for typing numbers, but the forms could use an upgrade, it is 2023 after all, where we could used saved views of our models or a glfT/usdz of the models, with Annotations, and the form would then allow us to over-ride the annotation(s) and add in the prompted form dimension... this way the user could rotate all around and see exactly the entry fields prompted by the form

[Maxim-CADman77]

@WCrihfield 

I wonder whether WinForm created with iLogic can be easily re-used on promoting iLogic-project to Visual Studio?

[WCrihfield]

Hi @Maxim-CADman77.  I am not 100% sure how difficult it would be.  Even though I have VS Community 2019 installed on my work computer, I rarely use it for anything for 2 reasons.  1) Because I do not have administrator's rights on my work computer, due to corporate wide high security policies.  2) It was not properly set-up for things like creating Inventor add-ins or Windows Forms apps at the time.  Due to these restrictions, have not been able to create Inventor add-ins or Windows Forms that way.  The code I had posted for creating Windows Forms with an iLogic rule was just created from scratch, within the iLogic rule editor dialog, through a bit of trial & error testing.  I'm sure it could be done much quicker and much easier though VS, without needing to copy the code.  Some of the knowledge/experience I needed for coding it came from previously creating some VBA UserForms within the Inventor VBA Editor dialog, and dealing with the Form type Module that goes along with its UI.  There was definitely some code translation needed, but I was already somewhat familiar with the differences between VBA and vb.net, so it wasn't that difficult.  Plus, there is a lot of online documentation available for all that vb.net related stuff, so if there was something I did not fully understand at the time, I simply looked it up...usually from the source.

[A.Acheson]

Hi Chris,

I read this Autodesk University Article "Making the Leap from iLogic to Add-Ins—or Not?"

last week about class libraries and custom dialog. It is exactly about what your trying to do. Very interesting topic but certainly addin material and not ilogic related. I wish I had the knowledge and time to give it a shot. Let us know when you find the time to implement and we can check your finished product.