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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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