HOWTO: Example Pro/Toolkit Application using Visual Studio 2005

In my previous post titled "Example ProTookit Application using Visual Studio 2005" I received a comment asking to explain how I created the sample workspace (Pro/Toolkit Application using Visual C++ 2005) which can be downloaded by clicking the file below:



http://ossandcad.googlecode.com/files/ProToolkitVisualCpp.zip


I should point out that the workspace that is attached above, while it is currently in Visual Studio 2005 format, came initially from Visual Studio 2002 (or known as Visual Studio.NET) and my colleagues and I regularly updated the workspace in current versions of Visual Studio.

In this post I try and explain the steps I used to create a sample workspace from scratch in Visual Studio 2005 for Pro/Toolkit applications. For more details (although with some mistakes some of which I will list in future posts) refer to "tkuse.pdf" in "C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 3.0\protoolkit".

I break the process down into following steps:

Creating the Visual Studio 2005 solution

The easiest method I know of to create a Pro/Toolkit Application in Visual Studio 2005 (that matches the above workspace) is to start with an Empty Project. Name it "proe" for example.

Add a file named "main.cpp".

Add the following code to "main.cpp"

#include <windows.h>

#include <protoolkit.h>
#include <procore.h>

/** Make sure to call ProToolkitMain passing the arguments passed into main
*/
extern "C" int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
ProToolkitMain(argc, argv);
return 0;
}

/** Required entry point for Pro/Toolkit
*/
extern "C" int user_initialize()
{
MessageBox(NULL, "Pro/Toolkit App", "proe", MB_OK);
return 0;
}

extern "C" void user_terminate()
{
return;
}

Change the "Configuration Type" to "Dynamic Library (.dll)".

Add the relevant include folders for Pro/Toolkit ("C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 3.0\protoolkit\includes";"C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 3.0\prodevelop\includes").

Add the following pre-processor definitions (WIN32;NDEBUG;_WINDOWS;_USRDLL;PROE_PROJ_EXPORTS;PRO_MACHINE=29; PRO_OS=4;hypot=_hypot;MSB_LEFT;far=ptc_far;huge=p_huge;near=p_near;_X86_=1)

Make sure for the Runtime Library you are using "Multi-threaded DLL (/MD)" or the "Multi-threaded Debug DLL (/MDd)" based on whether you are using "Release" or "Debug" configuration respectively.

Make sure that the "Treat wchar_t as Built-in Type" is set to "No (/Zc:wchar_t-)".


Add the relevant Pro/Toolkit and Pro/Develop library folders ("C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 3.0\prodevelop\i486_nt\obj";"C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 3.0\protoolkit\i486_nt\obj").

Add the "Additional Dependencies" (wsock32.lib mpr.lib prodev_dllmd.lib protk_dllmd.lib psapi.lib)

Do a Rebuild and make sure you have a DLL named "proe.dll" in a sub-folder named Debug or Release depending on your build configuration.

Creating the Pro/Toolkit application files and message files

Pro/Engineer loads Pro/Toolkit applications using a registration file named "protk.dat" in the Debug AND Release folder. You need to create a protk.dat file for the Pro/Toolkit DLL that you created using the workspace above. While developing and testing the Pro/Toolkit application I use the following "protk.dat":

NAME proe
EXEC_FILE proe1.dll
TEXT_DIR ..\text
STARTUP DLL
allow_stop TRUE
revision Wildfire
END

The "protk.dat" is pretty easy to understand although it would have helped if Pro/Engineer used a more standard method such as the Windows Registry (although that may not work since Pro/Engineer is multi-platform). The main variables you need to be aware of are:

• TEXT_DIR - The value for this variable is "..\text". This means you need to create a sub-folder named "text" under your main folder. In the "text" folder create a text file named "menu.txt". The "text" folder and the text file "menu.txt" (the name can be changed but I don't delve into that in this post) are Pro/Engineer's bizarre method to enable localization. The "menu.txt" file looks something like the following:

USER %0s
%0s
#
#
MenuLabel
Menu
#
#
PushButton
PushButton
#
#

It simply lists the label that is seen by the Pro/Toolkit application and its corresponding value. Most Visual C++ developers use either a String Table or other sort of Resource. If you think this is weird, I think it may have something to do with Pro/Engineer supporting multiple Operating Systems.

• STARTUP - For the example provided the type is "DLL".
  

Execute Pro/Engineer and load the Pro/Toolkit Application

While developing and testing your Pro/Toolkit application I use the following method:

• Create a shortcut to "C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 3.0\bin\proe.exe" in your Pro/Toolkit's "Debug" or "Release" folder.
• Make sure the "Start in" text box for this shortcut remains empty which means that this shortcut will start Pro/Engineer in the current folder and will automatically load the DLL specified in protk.dat located in the same folder.
• Double click the shortcut you created to run Pro/Engineer. If you get a message box with the text "Pro/Toolkit App" then IT WORKED. REJOICE.
  

If the method in the above post did not work for you, you can also download the ZIP file I have provided and try that out. If you need more help, post a comment and I will try to provide more information.

Example ProTookit Application using Visual Studio 2005

PTC has been offering an Application Programming Interface (API) for Pro/Engineer for many years now and I have seen an article or two or three online that shows you how to develop Pro/Toolkit applications using Visual C++. These are very useful and if you navigate to the bottom of the page on article three then you will find a few zip files that you can download and start working with Visual C++ and Pro/Toolkit quickly. There is even a site that sells you tutorials on how to develop Pro/Toolkit applications. Of course I have never purchased any such tutorials so am unable to recommend them.

Interestingly very little outside help is available on developing Pro/Toolkit Applications using Visual C++. Simply Googling for Pro/Toolkit help is of very very little help. So what is a Pro/Toolkit developer to do?

In an effort to help other Pro/Toolkit developers who are using Visual C++ 2005 I have attached a zipped workspace created in Visual Studio 2005. This zipped workspace allows you to create a DLL that creates a Menu in the Pro/Engineer interface. Please use this workspace as a starting point - it is not by no means the perfect workspace (for example I currently put the menu.txt in two locations - which is not the most efficient way to do it). This workspace was created and donated by a colleague of mine, Amar Junankar (although I had created a similar workspace and have kept it updated for many years).



http://ossandcad.googlecode.com/files/ProToolkitVisualCpp.zip


If you notice carefully in the workspace (after unzipping) in both the "debug" and "release" sub-folders there is a batch file named "Start_ProE_Here.bat". What this batch file does is start Pro/Engineer (default location of "C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 3.0\bin\proe.exe") from the "debug" or "release" (viz. current) sub-folder. This ensures that the protk.dat (which Pro/Engineer uses to register Pro/Toolkit applications) is loaded on startup of Pro/Engineer thus enabling our Pro/Toolkit application. Of course before starting this batch file, please do a build of both debug and release configurations.

As a side note: In my next post I will add to this workspace the necessary lines of code that will allow a developer to call .NET assemblies from within the Pro/Toolkit Application.

If you need any help please post a comment and I will try to help as much as I can.

.NET in Pro/Toolkit

Summary: Can we use .NET to develop Pro/Toolkit applications for Pro/Engineer?

I have seen numerous articles providing tutorials (heres one and another one) on how to develop Pro/Toolkit applications using Visual C++ (either 2003 or 2005). Now the articles refer to developing Pro/Toolkit applications using Visual C++.NET which I think is misleading since the .NET portion refers (I believe) to Managed Visual C++ code while the articles refer to Unmanaged Visual C++ code.

So this begs the question: how does one develop Pro/Toolkit applications using Visual C++.NET Managed Code and is this even possible?

The short answer is NO - YOU CANNOT DEVELOP Pro/Toolkit APPLICATIONS USING VISUAL C++.NET MANAGED CODE (or C# or Visual Basic.NET).

The long answer is PERHAPS - I found a product by ETRAGE LLC named ACI for Pro/Engineer that provides a COM wrapper around Pro/Toolkit functions. Using such a wrapper developers can code Pro/Toolkit applications using pure .NET languages. In fact the product page provides sample code in Visual Basic.NET. This is pretty nice, since if I were to replicate such functionality then I would need to create a DLL (since I could not find a DLL containing Pro/Toolkit functions for Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0) that exports the functions in the LIB and mentioned in the header files and then use that DLL in .NET through .NET's Platform Invoke - which is a lot of work - not difficult but a lot of work (major testing would be required). I will try this method out and if it works will post another article with a HowTo.

But suppose you wanted to merely call functions from .NET classes in your Pro/Toolkit application then there is a simple way to do so using the idea of exposing .NET objects through COM interface. This article on CodeProject provides a great tutorial on how to do just that. Of course you are still developing the Pro/Toolkit application using Visual C++ but now you can consume .NET objects easily.

An FYI though if you use the method suggested by the CodeProject article - there is a slight slowdown when you call the COM methods (I think the call to CoInitialize is what causes this problem) - so initialize and finalize the COM components once for your application instead of for each method call.

I will try and post a sample workspace with my next post that shows how to use .NET objects in Pro/Toolkit applications. If anyone has any comments or questions please provide them below I will do my best to answer them.