Another year, another round of great updates for the SOLIDWORKS API. Although I’m not going to change the title of this blog series, this post is also going to contain updates for the PDM API and Document Manager API as well. Anyway, the continual improvement of these APIs should give amateur and professional developers confidence that SOLIDWORKS Corporation is investing in their API for the long-haul.

Below are lists of the most notable API calls and interfaces added in the 2019 versions of SOLIDWORKS, PDM, and Document Manager. You can see all additions and their related API calls in the Release Notes article in the API Help. You can find it in the local API Help by searching for “Release Notes” in the category tab. Note that the local API Help Release Notes will only be as up-to-date as the service pack you have downloaded.

New SOLIDWORKS API Calls and Interfaces
  • Access Bounding Box feature data.
  • Access Ground Plane feature data.
  • Access Tab and Slot feature data.
  • Convert an existing balloon to a stacked balloon.
  • Create a geodesic sketch offset along the curvature of a surface.
  • Create a pattern feature with a smaller subset of parameters and then extend or modify
    it using a pattern-specific feature data object.
  • Create an assembly mate with a smaller subset of parameters and then extend or
    modify it using a mate-specific feature data object.
  • Get a component’s suppression state or, if an internal ID mismatch exists, an error
    code.
  • Get an annotation’s text scale in the 3D View.
  • Get data from the Hole Wizard database.
  • Get or set more properties on linear, linear component, and circular component pattern
    features.
  • Get or set more table column types, including the equation-driven type.
  • Get or set the orientation of text in table cells.
  • Get or set whether an angle or distance mate is a limit mate.
  • Get or set whether to bidirectionally project a curve.
  • Get or set whether to enable the pushpin of an add-in’s callout.
  • Get or set whether to enable the Select Identical Components menu item in the
    context menu of a PropertyManager page selection box.
  • Get or set whether to exclude a component from the bills of materials in specified
    configurations.
  • Get or set whether to generate a display list for a part’s configuration.
  • Get or set whether to load external references in memory when opening a document.
  • Get or set whether to reverse the direction of a specified reference of a reference plane
    feature.
  • Get the error status of an assembly mate.
  • Insert a Delete Hole feature for selected hole edges on a surface.
  • Insert, open, and update models developed in other CAD packages.
  • Repeatedly detect collisions among groups of components in a variety of
    transformations.
  • Specify whether to include a specified component when saving an assembly as a part.
New PDM API Calls and Interfaces

New API calls

  • Add users by login type to the vault. See IEdmUserMgr10::AddUsers3.
  • Get whether a specified user must add a state change comment for specified workflow transitions for specified documents. See IEdmVault20::GetTransitionCommentPermissions.
  • Get specified files from a vault. See IEdmVault20::GetFiles.
  • Get the archive server log. See IEdmVault20::GetArchiveServerLog.

New structure

  • EdmDocIds. Contains information about one document in the vault. Used in IEdmVault20::GetFiles.
New Document Manager API Calls and Interfaces

New API calls

  • ISwDMDocument23::GetLicenseType

Improved API calls

  • ISwDMConfiguration16::GetCutListItems (obsoletes ISwDMDocument13::GetCutListItems2)
  • ISwDMConfigurationMgr2::GetConfigurationByName2 (obsoletes
  • ISwDMConfigurationMgr::GetConfigurationByName)
  • ISwDMConfigurationMgr2::GetConfigurationCount2 (obsoletes ISwDMConfigurationMgr::GetConfigurationCount)
  • ISwDMConfigurationMgr2::GetConfigurationNames2 (obsoletes ISwDMConfigurationMgr::GetConfigurationNames)
VSTA 1.0 End-Of-Life Announcement

VSTA 1.0, which was the only way a developer could create .NET macros up until SOLIDWORKS 2018, is going to be replaced entirely by VSTA 3.0 macros in SOLIDWORKS 2021, meaning that SOLIDWORKS 2020 is the last version that will support VSTA 1.0. I wrote about my opinion about VSTA 3.0 last year but I’ll reiterate here what I said then: I have no intention of using VSTA / .NET macros anymore. Its so much simpler to just set up a stand-alone sandbox if one needs to test .NET code.

Anyway, if you want to hear the official announcement concerning VSTA 1.0, it was delivered by Daniel Seaman of SOLIDWORKS Corporation in his presentation “Upgrading SOLIDWORKS Macros to Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2015”. This is the same presentation he delivered at SOLIDWORKS World 2018, FYI. I am not sure when they will post the video of this year’s presentation (if it was even recorded) so here are the instructions for watching his 2018 presentation:

1. Visit the SolidWorks World 2018 agenda
2. Search the Sessions tab for the name “Seaman”
3. The result for “Upgrading SOLIDWORKS Macros to Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2015” should appear and you can click Watch Video on the right (requires a free account)

Does anything we’ve covered stand out to you as particularly useful or exciting? If so then let us know in the comments!

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