kDataDropIOMechanism

[dylanTEV9W]

Hi everyone, 

I'm trying to run this .stl translator sample but I'm running into a small issue. 
it seems to be that a global variable called kDataDropIOMechanism is required I've seen it referenced in
several other places but none of them seem to mention what it is. If anyone can tell me what it is I'd really
appreciate it. Thanks in advance for any help!

Sub ImportFunc()
    ' Set STL translator's CLSID and STL file name.
    Dim strCLSID As String
    Dim strFileName As String
    strCLSld = "{81CA7D27-2DBE-4058-8188-9136F85FC859}"
    strFileName = "C:\Part1.stl"
      
    Dim oAddIns As ApplicationAddIns
    Set oAddIns = ThisApplication.ApplicationAddIns
    
    ' Find the Rhino translator, get the CLSID and activate it.
    Dim oTransAddIn As TranslatorAddIn
    Set oTransAddIn = oAddIns.ItemById(strCLSld)
    oTransAddIn.Activate
    
    ' Get the transient object and take it as a factory to produce other objects
    Dim transientObj As TransientObjects
    Set transientObj = ThisApplication.TransientObjects
    
    ' Prepare the first parameter for Open(), the file name
    Dim file As DataMedium
    Set file = transientObj.CreateDataMedium
    file.FileName = strFileName
    
    ' Prepare the second parameter for Open(), the open type.
    Dim context As TranslationContext
    Set context = transientObj.CreateTranslationContext
    context.Type = kDataDropIOMechanism
    
    ' Prepare the 3rd parameter for Open(), the options.
    Dim options As NameValueMap
    Set options = transientObj.CreateNameValueMap
    options.Value("SaveComponentDuringLoad") = False
    options.Value("SaveLocationIndex") = 0
    options.Value("ComponentDestFolder") = ""
    options.Value("ImportUnit") = 1
    options.Value("ImportColor") = True
    options.Value("ImportColorIndex") = 0
    
    ' Prepare the fourth parameter for Open(), the final document.
    Dim sourceObj As Object
    
    ' Open the STL file.
    oTransAddIn.Open file, context, options, sourceObj
End Sub

[JamieVJohnson2]

kDataDropIOMechanism is IOMechanismEnum with Value 13058.  its brothers are FileBrowse, PasteSpecial, and Unspecified.  Knowing that, it is most likely the drop portion of a drag and drop command sequence.  This is where the user click-drags an object, the do-drag event fires off, and the object is loaded into memory, then when a command that accepts the object type and the drag&drop's drop event (both event and object type), it will do work on the dropped object.

[dylanTEV9W]

Any idea why it might be constantly throwing an error? Do I need to define it as a class or something?

[JamieVJohnson2 · Accepted solution]

It doesn't appear that you are performing an operation with drag-drop.  You probably want the other option kFileBrowsIOMechanism, as you are opening a file right?  Trying to guess from your code snippet...  I see that you copied directly from the Sample code, take a look at the Sample code for the DXF translator as well.  You will start to see a pattern for your use case.

 Also if you are intending a drag-n-drop operation, make sure the object is actually populated in-memory during the drop command.  It could be throwing an error because the object is 1 missing, or 2 the wrong object.

[dylanTEV9W]

Okay I will try modifying the code with kFileBrowseIOMechanism and see how it works. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that to me!

[dylanTEV9W]

I've gotten it mostly working after replacing kDataDropIOMechanism with the kFileBrowseIOMechanism enum code. I've been trying to automate opening an .obj file in inventor, after some experimentation I found that simply using the basic open function did the trick for me.