Mastercam "Notepad" project

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hey everyone,

 

I've got a question about creating a utility that interfaces with Mastercam. Someone posted a question in the main forum about being able to have a dialog box with commonly used numbers so they could copy and paste them into Mastercam.

 

I've seen several programs that install into Mastercam and create new tabs in the operations manager. I would like to create a utility that would add a new tab into the operations manager that would function like a notepad window. Just a place to enter data (alpha-numeric) that could then be used to copy/paste. The problem with using an external program like notepad, is that the window is hidden behind Mastercam's interface when swiching back and forth.

 

Does anyone know how I might go about starting this? I've got VS2005, but I don't know .NET or C++ very well.

 

Thanks in advance.

[crazy^millman]

Send Ernie at Verisurf an email and see if he has some ideas.

 

HTH

[Takashi Sato from Ai Solutions.]

I've just found this tool.

It looks useful.

 

http://krapplets.cream.org/populist.shtml

 

http://www.google.com/search?q=clipboard+freeware&

[Colin Gilchrist]

Nice,

 

Thank you very much Takahsi. I'll look into this and see if it will work.

[Thee Rickster ™]

Colin,

 

That is a utility that I would also find extremely

useful.

 

Keep us informed on your progress

 

Rick

[Verisurf - Ernie Husted]

That will be easy for us to make.

 

Sounds like a useful tool that I would use.

Hey, another free chook

 

 

Ernie

[crazy^millman]

I thought you would be the right guy for the task thanks for looking in on this thread Ernie.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Sweet, thanks for coming to the rescue Ernie. I've seen what you guys did with your other Chooks. I've got to spend some more time learning visual studio.

[Verisurf - Ernie Husted]

Here it is

 

 

 

I added it to the Free Hole Axis CHook install.

http://www.3dgage.com/X2mr2/Verisurf_X2mr2_Hole_Axis.exe

 

Let me know if there are any problems.

 

Ernie

[Verisurf - Ernie Husted]

[Steve Biehl - Cimquest Inc]

 

Ernie, problem, I probably shouldn't have installed it with 'Reverse' installed

[Steve Biehl - Cimquest Inc]

notepad works cool, and I like the calculator there also

[Verisurf - Ernie Husted]

Hi Steve,

 

It may be incompatible dlls.

 

Here is an updated Install for Reverse.

 

Verisurf_X2mr2.exe

 

Let me know if this fixes the errors.

 

Ernie

[Thee Rickster ™]

Ernie,

 

I have not installed it yet, just too darn busy.

 

Does the text entered in the note pad stick

infinitely? Or will it be cleared when MC is shut

down and reopened?

 

Thanks

Rick

[Verisurf - Ernie Husted]

It keeps the text saved, it has full Copy and Paste controls and the Notes screen is sizeable and remembers its size and position and is always on top.

 

Ernie

[Steve Biehl - Cimquest Inc]

ernie,

new build of reverse fixed the FT problem.

 

could you put file open/save ability into the notepad?

[Verisurf - Ernie Husted]

Steve,

 

I will have to think about that one.

 

Right now we need to get ready for Westec.

 

Ernie

[Steve Biehl - Cimquest Inc]

thanks ernie, good luck at westec

[Colin Gilchrist]

SUCCESS! Thanks a ton Ernie. This is exactly what I was looking for. Did you develop it in Visual Studio? I'm trying to learn more about creating Chooks with VS for Mastercam.

 

Thanks again,

[Colin Gilchrist]

The only thing that I'm missing is the acutal "Verisurf" menu in Mastercam's main menu. I had to load the tool bar icon to launch the notes function. Any ideas why I wouldn't get the main menu?

 

I do have Mastercam installed into C:mcamx

 

Could this be the cause?

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hi Ernie,

 

I've got a question for you. Could you set the allowable size of the notes dialog box to go smaller in the width? It look like at the smallest, it is about 26 ASCII Characters wide (not sure how many pixels). It would be nice if we could re-size the dialog to be only about as wide as a standard verticle toolbar (maybe a little wider) and also resize it vertically to be about the height of a standard toolbar. Making the border very thin would also help keep the size down. Man, I've got to figure out how to create this stuff. Development is just too much fun compared to NC programming.

 

Thanks again. No rush on getting this done.

[Verisurf - Ernie Husted]

Colin,

 

I don't know why your Verisurf menu doesn’t show up.

 

When you ran the install did it default to the correct path? C:mcamx

 

Is a file named verisurf.menu installed in the chooks folder? this it the file that sets up the Verisurf menu.

 

 

Steve, did the Verisurf menu show up on your system?

 

 

Ernie

[Guest]

Ernie,

 

This is great, I only have one additional request.

 

It would be great if this could be "file specific"

 

You could then keep notes about that particular parts.

 

The Verisurf menu did show up on my system.

 

I installed the newest Verisurf first and then the new chook

[Guest SAIPEM]

Will this work with X2 MR1?

 

I'm trying to get the company back on maintenance but the P.O. hasn't been cut yet.

[ToolMan184]

I would like to see something similar to use with set-up sheets. Where you have name fields that could be pulled into a set up sheet. Then if you have 5 different operations with 5 different set-up sheets you dont have to re-enter all the information each time. It would be nice to see some of the fields with drop down boxes to select Customer names etc.

 

This would be very nice to have.