iLogic is a foreign language to me
Hi @BK-MTFNE
You are not alone in your thoughts many users start of in the same way wanting to automate there tasks but not having any knowledge of code languages and principles. I was one of those people back in 2019 starting off with having iproperties in excel and not wanting to copy and paste each cell into a document. Really the best way to start is to copy and paste a piece of code and just see what it does. It gets harder when you want to customize the code to your needs.
To start with the iLogic rule editor or integrated Development Environment (IDE) is the built in tool for writing code within inventor. Small snippets of code are available on the browser of the editor and these are code written for the iLogic API. The iLogic rule editor also allows you to run another language called VB.NET and this is used to code using the Inventor API. You can switch between the iLogic API and Inventor API in the same rule and in fact lots of forum rules take advantage of that fact.
The difference between the methods and language can be seen below.
iLogic API to add and read an iproperty called part number.
partNo = iProperties.Value("Project",Part Number")
MessageBox.Show("Part Number",partNo )
VB.NET Language and Inventor API to read an iproperty called part number.
Sub Main
GetPropertySample()
End Sub
Sub GetPropertySample()
' Get the active document.
Dim invDoc As Document = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
' Get the design tracking property set.
Dim invDesignInfo As PropertySet = invDoc.PropertySets.Item("Design Tracking Properties")
' Get the part number property.
Dim invPartNumberProperty As [Property] = invDesignInfo.Item("Part Number")
MsgBox ("Part Number: " & invPartNumberProperty.value)
End Sub
VBA Language and Inventor API to read an iproperty called part number.
Public Sub GetPropertySample()
' Get the active document.
Dim invDoc As Document
Set invDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
' Get the design tracking property set.
Dim invDesignInfo As PropertySet
Set invDesignInfo = invDoc.PropertySets.Item("Design Tracking Properties")
' Get the part number property.
Dim invPartNumberProperty As Property
Set invPartNumberProperty = invDesignInfo.Item("Part Number")
MsgBox "Part Number: " & invPartNumberProperty.value
End Sub
The User Manual for the API link here will give you a good background as to how to begin using the Inventor API. Note that a wealth of samples exist but most are written in VBA language so you will need to convert to VB.NET to be able to use the ilogic editor. For the most part this is removing the word "SET" and driving the sub routine from Sub Main or inserting the code directly with no sub routines. The User Manual for the iLogic API link here in my opinion is not as easy to understand from the instructions and very few samples exist as you would write it in the code editor so it is more of a reference document for more experienced use.
This forum is likely the best place for learning specific coding within inventor but I would certainly use any source that helps you in your specific learning styles like you tube videos and written literature.
Some specific blogs are
https://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2013/02/inventor-api-training-lesson-1.html
https://adndevblog.typepad.com/files/cp2544_ilogic_inventor_api.pdf
https://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2018/04/accessing-iproperties-through-ilogic-code.html
For coding/programming related questions like what is Dim or how to use If Then End If statements I would usually do an internet search of a similar language on stack overflow forum like excel VBA and then transcribe the methods over. See video here of declaring string, integer, boolean etc. Or you can also use official sources like Microsoft Help Files-Variable Declaration
