Parameters - Advanced

[NachoShaw]

Hey

Ive started making a new addin to handle parameters but with some extra features and wondered what anyone else would like to see? It will operate pretty much the same way as the existing parameter window in terms of updating the model immediately or not, equations validating etc. I will release it here and on the app store for free when its done. The things im adding-

tab through each row left to right, down through each rows

row dragging / organising

parameter grouping - create a group, assign to parameters, group them together in sections. 

show / hide groups - i have calculated parameters that i dont want to sift through in a long list.

equation builder - a list of parameters that you can drag / drop into a string to quickly build an equation

light / dark theme

i was thinking about an option to convert an existing parameter but that needs a bit of logic thought.

anyway, if there are other options that you think might be worth while, drop them here and i'll see what i can come up with 🙂

[CattabianiI]

Nice job!
Let me drop some ideas:
- automatic grouping by consumed by, you should show some parameters more than once.
- Is the form modeless? Highlight parameters by selecting features in the browser.
- Show parameters which are different between model states

- Export to json

How did you do the equation builder? Can you write parameters manually, maybe with hints? Can you drag and drop operators? Did you use a third party library or did you make on your own? Add operators and if statement doable in inv params like explained here

[NachoShaw]

Hey

- automatic grouping by consumed by, you should show some parameters more than once.

could you explain a little more about this?

- Is the form modeless? Highlight parameters by selecting features in the browser.

Form could be modeless but for what purpose?

- Show parameters which are different between model states

This could be done, maybe a dropdown with the modelstates listed that can be selected

- Export to json

This could be done along with export to xml, excel, word etc

[WCrihfield]

Hi @NachoShaw.  I like the general idea for an improved Parameters interface with more functionality.  After looking at the link that @CattabianiI pointed to, I realized I actually know of an indirect way to use custom code, such as If...Then...Else type statements within the existing Parameters dialog equation field.

I'm guessing that most folks have never heard of it, or ever even thought about it, but I looked into this idea a year or few ago, I think.  The technique depends on VBA though, which in my opinion is not ideal, since it seems to be on its way out, of late.  Anyways, when you have model type Inventor documents open, then open Inventor's built-in VBA Editor, then expand the node beside the document project within the Project Explorer window, then expand the 'Modules' node, there is a module called "Functions".  This is the key.  You can define Public 'Functions' within that module that accept one or more Double type input variable(s) and return one output as Double.  Then those functions you defined within can be used within the Parameters dialog of that document.  Unfortunately, there isn't a 'all documents' version of this module that will work this way, just this default module, which is automatically created with each document, and those functions can't be shared/accessed across from one document to another.  If you could replicate a similar type of functionality somehow within your add-in, that would be really sweet!  Especially if it could somehow store functions that other documents could access.  Here is one of the (hard to find) pages that talks about this ability.

[NachoShaw]

Hi

i had missed the link that @CattabianiI had provided. Yes this would be great to include. The addin will be .Net based and it looks like the Function implementation is VBA only. That said, it wouldnt be super difficult to create a separate VBA Project that can be included and referenced / loaded in for the session. (ive done this before in Access databases). That would then in theory, make it globally accessible.

@CattabianiI to answer the question on string builder, I made something similar last year for someone that fitted the needs. You would drag / drop from the respective grid lists to construct a valid string that can be used. Here is an example

[CattabianiI]

- automatic grouping by consumed by, you should show some parameters more than once.

could you explain a little more about this?

In the consumed by section you see wich features are consuming the parameter, I think sometimes could see all the parameters which are driving a feature near to each others is useful, I'm not a solidworks user but I remember that in sw you can see parameters grouped by solid, I thought I have seen something similar in the Inv Ideas station.

- Is the form modeless? Highlight parameters by selecting features in the browser.

Form could be modeless but for what purpose?

To select parts and features in the browser and filter the parameters by what is selected.

[NachoShaw]

Hey

Im using 2022 and this feature doesnt appear to exist anymore. Maybe its been retired, im sure i read somewhere a while ago on another thread that is was stopped. I'll see if i can find it

[WCrihfield]

Hmm...  I just got updated to Inventor 2022 from 2021 a week ago, so I just opened up some of my older test files, which incorporated some of this, and I see that equation field of the parameters which are using these types of custom functions are greyed out, with the text within as red.  And when I click into the equation field and hover, it says it "Cannot Evaluate" now.  I opened the document's VBA project, and the functions are still there, and still look OK.  I even added another function for new testing, but it would not be recognized when attempting to use it within the equation field of a new user parameter in the parameters dialog.  I don't understand why this functionality would fail now, when it worked then.  I had heard that newer versions of Inventor would not have the VBA Editor automatically included in them anymore, due to some security concerns, but my install of Inventor 2022 has it and it has been working OK so far.  I had not heard any other news though about ceasing any functionality.  If you find something about the topic, I would be interested in learning more.  It's not a huge hit, because I have generally always preferred sticking to the iLogic/vb.net side anyways, but I do have a bunch of macros that I regularly use, and I had created custom icons for many of them too (still showing), so that would certainly not be ideal.

[NachoShaw]

I remembered this one from a short while ago..

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ilogic-api-vba-forum/vba-2021-vs-2022/m-p/10328381#M124660

I'm sure i read somewhere that it was being discontinued, maybe to make way for iLogic instead

[WCrihfield]

Thanks.  I just searched again and found this one too.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor/downloads/caas/downloads/content/download-the-micros...

I knew I had seen this page before, and I knew there was a security risk causing Autodesk to hold off on including VBA automatically in new installs.  But I still have not found any other 'official' documentation explaining anything about any of VBA's functionality ceasing to work, even if you have do have it installed on newer releases.  Oh well.  I can find other ways to do most (if not all) of the stuff I was doing with my macros, but the macro buttons in the ribbons I will miss, because I haven't been able to go down the whole add-in road here due to corporate level restrictions, preventing all employees from having administrative rights on their own computers.