Mod the Machine

Reference Key Manager

Brian has a very detailed article on Reference Keys (exposed through the ReferenceKeyManager object) and as I was playing with them I thought it could be useful to have a tool for that.

So I created an add-in that lets you create Key Contexts and Reference Keys for the various objects, and binding them back to objects in the model.
When switching between documents, it also stores/loads data to/from json files named based on the Document's DisplayName plus ".json" as extension, .e.g. "Boxes.iam.json" 
They will be saved in the same folder as the add-in's dll and their content will look like this:

{
  "contexts": {
    "Default": {
      "index": 0,
      "keys": [
        "AgEBAAQAAAADAAAA"
      ]
    },
    "AgAAAAEAAAA=": {
      "index": 1,
      "keys": [
        "AgEBAAQAAAACAAAA",
        "AgEBAAQAAAADAAAA",
        "AgEBAAQAAAAGAAAA"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Here is the add-in's form:

As I was looking for icons I ran into the Visual Studio Image Library which can be downloaded from the Microsoft website:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=35825

Here is the source code of the project: https://github.com/adamenagy/ReferenceKeyManager

I modified the Project settings so that the Output folder will always be the correct location for loading the add-in in Inventor:
%AppData%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\ReferenceKeyManager

The way to do that is open the csproj file in a text editor and then you can use special variables like $(AppData) in the <OutputPath>:

<OutputPath>$(AppData)\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\ReferenceKeyManager\</OutputPath>

-Adam

ReleaseComObject vs FinalReleaseComObject

When freeing up COM objects in your Inventor add-in, don't use FinalReleaseComObject() as it will badly affect other add-ins. It fully releases the object, so that other add-ins previously referencing it will not be able to access it either.

Here is an example.

AddIn1 does this when being unloaded:

public void Deactivate()
{
  Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(m_inventorApplication);
  m_inventorApplication = null;

  GC.Collect();
  GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();
}

AddIn2 has the following code executing when its button is clicked:

private void M_buttonDefinition_OnExecute(NameValueMap Context)
{
  try
  {
    MessageBox.Show(m_inventorApplication.ActiveDocument.DisplayName, 
      "m_inventorApplication.ActiveDocument.DisplayName");
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Accessing m_inventorApplication");
  }
}

If I unload AddIn1 and try to use AddIn2's command, I'll run into this:

(error message says: "COM object that has been separated from its underlying RCW cannot be used.")

Instead of using FinalReleaseComObject(), you could use ReleaseComObject() or even just setting the variable to null might be enough.
You can still call GC.Collect() & GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers() to trigger the release of the objects.

-Adam

iLogic variable not up-to-date

When an iLogic rule runs and it has a variable with the name of a given Inventor parameter, then it will take the current value of that parameter and keep using it - its value will not get updated if the value of the parameter is changed in the meantime outside the rule.
The following article alludes to it, though does not say it explicitly: About Rules and Forms in iLogic

Let's say we have a parameter named "MyParam" and two rules: "MyRule" and "ChangeMyParam". Neither rule is run automatically, i.e. they have the "Don't run automatically" option checked:

Inside "MyRule" we use "MyParam" variable and show its value before and after calling "ChangeMyParam" rule.

MyRule:

MessageBox.Show(MyParam, "MyRule before ChangeMyParam")

iLogicVb.RunRule("ChangeMyParam") 

MessageBox.Show(MyParam, "MyRule after ChangeMyParam")

MessageBox.Show(Parameter("MyParam"), "MyRule after ChangeMyParam")

ChangeMyParam:

MyParam = MyParam + 10

This is what we get when we run "MyRule":

As you can see, if you want to get the up-to-date value of an Inventor parameter, then you can use the Parameter() function.

-Adam