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Hard to believe that its been three years since the SOLIDWORKS community gathered together in person. In that time, CADSharp has grown over four-fold, from five full-time contractors to over twenty. We’re more excited than ever to talk to SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS PDM customers about their automation needs. You can find us at booth 747. I’ll also be presenting on Monday at 11:15 AM on the topic, “Macros vs Addins vs Stand-Alones”, where I’ll be covering the pros and cons of each program type you can use with the SOLIDWORKS API.

See you in Nashville!

Keith

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CADSharp is offering a four-day live training class in Vancouver, WA, USA on SOLIDWORKS API Fundamentals using VBA and VB.NET. Here’s what others have said about our classes:

“You’re the best programming teacher I’ve ever had. I took two programming classes in college and neither of the teachers broke the subject down and explained every line of code like you do.” – Alex B.

Why You Should Attend

<> Highly rated. The last 40 survey respondents averaged 8.4 / 10 for the question, “Were you satisfied with how much you learned?”

<> Beginner-friendly. No previous programming experience is required.

<> Personal. Small class size allows for excellent teacher-student interaction.

<> Professional. Content is designed and taught by Keith Rice, a leading SolidWorks API expert and software developer.

<> Flexible. Lessons are tailored on-the-fly to student needs and interests.

<> Learning doesn’t end. Complimentary one-year premium membership included.

Course Description

Download syllabus for SOLIDWORKS API Fundamentals

Ready to dive into the world of SOLIDWORKS API? Whether you’re a total beginner or a veteran that needs to grease the wheels, this is the class for you. After covering programming essentials with .NET, we’re going to hit all of the highlights of the SOLIDWORKS API: Parts, assemblies, drawings, custom properties, opening / saving documents, and so much more. We’ll show you exactly how to navigate the SOLIDWORKS API Help so you have the skills necessary to tackle any automation challenge. The contents of this course is born out of years of real-world, customer-driven experience. You won’t find it available anywhere else!

After attending, you will have the confidence and skills you need to begin developing high-quality software for your company, plus one year of access to CADSharp.com’s premium content and tech support to ensure that you don’t fall behind.

Price

999 USD per student (Normal price: 1500 USD!)

Date and Time

July 12 – July 15, 2022. Training is from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM with an hour break for lunch. The instructor will remain until 5:30 PM to answer additional questions.

Location

915 Broadway St, Vancouver, WA 98660 USA

Our training center is located just 10 minutes away from the Portland International Airport (PDX) with plenty of excellent hotels, eateries, and outdoor attractions in the area.

Registration and Payment

Registration is strictly limited to FOUR people. Email me to register.

I have one laptop available for rent for 200 USD. First come, first serve. Otherwise, you will be expected to bring your own laptop.

Invoices may be paid by check, wire transfer, or credit card. If by credit card, an additional 3% processing fee is included. Invoices will be sent out a week before the class starts.

I hope you can join me for a great time of learning! Let me know if you have ANY questions.

Keith

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Thank you for attending my 3DExperience World 2021 presentation! You can download the presentation files here, including the PowerPoint, macro, and video:

How To Write A Powerful Macro From Scratch

Looking forward to seeing you next year in person!

Keith

The world’s first ever SOLIDWORKS PDM API video course is now available to aspiring PDM developers everywhere via CADSharp.com. This five hour course will teach how to automate SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional using VB.NET. Lessons include:

• Types of PDM Apps
• PDM API Object Model
• Vault Object
• Working With Files and Folders
• Traversing the Vault
• Check-ins and Check-outs
• Working With Vault Variables
• Batch Processing Variables
• Exporting Bill of Materials
• Implementing IEdmAddIn5
• How To Debug A PDM Addin
• GetAddInInfo and OnCmd
• Implementing A Task Addin
• How To Debug A Task Addin

This course is available with all other CADSharp.com premium content as part of our three-month or yearly membership. This membership includes access to our Slack tech support channel, where you can get PDM API help from any of our talented PDM developers. If you’re tired of spending countless hours digging through the PDM API Help or searching on forums, our premium membership will pay itself off in no time. Hope to see you soon!

(Important: This guide is owned and distributed by SOLIDWORKS Corp, not CADSharp LLC, which is why we cannot provide it to you directly.)

When SOLIDWORKS Corporation needed a best practices document written for the SOLIDWORKS API, they came to CADSharp LLC. That’s why we’re extremely proud to present “SolidPractices: Getting Started with the SOLIDWORKS API”, a detailed, 36-page SOLIDWORKS API best practices guide written by our Technical Director, Keith Rice, and born out of nearly a decade of real-world, customer-driven SOLIDWORKS API development. Below is the table of contents:

1. Preface
2. Introduction
3. Programming Best Practices
        1. Separation of Concerns
4. Program Type and Language Comparison
        1. Choosing A Program Type and Language
5. The Macro Recorder
6. The SOLIDWORKS API Help
7. The SOLIDWORKS API Object Model
8. General SOLIDWORKS API Usage Advice
        1. Version Interoperability
        2. Naming SOLIDWORKS Variables
        3. Early Binding SOLIDWORKS API Object Variables
        4. Optional Arguments
        5. Common Pitfalls
        6. Troubleshooting API Calls
9. General .NET Development Best Practices
        1. Installers
        2. Versioning
        3. Assembly Information
        4. Primary Interoperability Assemblies (PIAs)
        5. Source Control
        6. Embed Interop Types
        7. Error Handling and Program Termination
        8. Logging
        9. Remembering User Inputs
        10. Message and Dialog Boxes
        11. About Boxes and Help Pages
        12. XML Comments
10. Addin Development Best Practices
        1. Exposing the ISldWorks Pointer
        2. COM Visibility
        3. Addin Registration
        4. Tools Suite Addins
        5. Debugging Addins
        6. Updating Addins
        7. Architecting Addins
11. Stand-Alone Development Best Practices
        1. Getting the ISldWorks Pointer
        2. Testing If SOLIDWORKS Crashed
        3. Calling An Addin From A Stand-Alone
12. Addin User Interfaces
        1. User Interfaces
        2. Launching User Interfaces
13. Stand-Alone User Interfaces

How To Get Your Copy

The guide is only available to those with a SOLIDWORKS subscription. If you do not have a subscription, please contact your Value-Added Reseller to become a subscriber, which provides you full-access to the SOLIDWORKS Customer Portal so that you can find the guide in the Knowledge Base under S-077636. Here is a direct link to the guide’s solution page, which will ask you to log in to solidworks.com.

Have any questions or comments? We’d love to hear them.

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We live in interesting times. Our regards go out to all of those who are affected by COVID-19. Indeed, our main office is located in Washington state, where most US-based COVID cases have occurred. Fortunately, almost everyone at CADSharp works remotely so you should see no change to how you do business with us.

Given the disruption to many peoples’ work and the general economic turmoil, we hope that our three-month access to CADSharp.com’s power user membership for only 99 USD will provide value to you during this time. This is the deepest discount we’ve ever offered with a membership. It does NOT include technical support access, but you will still have access to ALL of our online content at CADSharp.com.

Originally this discount was intended to be only for potential customers in nations with bad conversion rates against the US dollar. We know this has prevented many people from affording a membership in the past who might have liked to use our training. Given the current economic turmoil, however, we decided to extend the discount to all users.

How To Get the Discount

If already registered at CADSharp.com:

1. Log into CADSharp.com
2. Go to the Videos page
3. Click Upgrade in the Member’s Area on the right
4. Choose 3-month membership
5. Enter the coupon code “learnapi”
6. Proceed with payment

If not yet registered at CADSharp.com:

1. Go to our Memberships page
2. Enter your user name and email
3. Choose 3-month membership
4. Enter the coupon code “learnapi”
5. Proceed with payment

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Stay safe and keep learning!