Jump to content

Inventor Autosave VBA


Hickoz_bro

Recommended Posts

surely someone out there has gotten annoyed enough with the lack of autosave feature in inventor that they've written some vba code to do the job. how hard would it be to set a timer (15mins say) so that it automatically saves all files edited in the current session to a temporary folder using the default file name with a time stamp suffixed to the end of the file name.

 

honestly i don't know anything about vba in inventor, but autodesk make a point of selling the customisation features of inventor it must be possible. i'd love to have a crack at it, but don't know where to start. i've searched around, but there are no useful training courses in my area, and i can't find any useful books either.

 

can anyone offer suggestions to help on any of those points?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Everytime I do something right, I automatically save. I hate an autosave interrupting my work and if a program has it I disable it.

Someone has programmed an alert timer, but you still must do the save. There has been lengthy discussions on this why an autosave in a parametric program is a bad idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

oh god yes!, jd im with you autosave is a pain i always hit save after every 5 mins providing the work is correct lol, autosave is just annoying especially if your experimenting on something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... hit save after every 5 mins

 

Usually when someone is looking for an autosave they have just lost X number of hours of work because they failed to save. I always ask, "How much work can you afford to lose in terms of hours/minutes to redo the work?" I advise to divide that number in half and save at least that often.

And because of the links between files and auxiliary concerns like Vault, an autosave can cause significant problems besides the annoying interruption in work.

My students have heard me say, "Save often", so frequently that they made me a t-shirt.

 

True story - one year during spring final exam just before students were to leave for the summer a squirrel got into a transformer and knocked out all power about 2.5 hours into a 3 hour exam. The students who had not saved their work had a bad day, but hopefully they learned something. The squirrel had a really bad day, he never had a chance.

Did Something Right.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

surely someone out there has gotten annoyed enough with the lack of autosave feature in inventor that they've written some vba code to do the job.

 

can anyone offer suggestions to help on any of those points?

 

I googled and got half your answer

http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2076

 

But this truly answers your question, in the greatest of depths.

http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2193&highlight=autosave

 

Nick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

okay, so the answer seems to be with the complexity of parametric modeling?? is that correct? saving links between files, relationships etc.

 

how does solidworks do it then? it allows the user the choice of autosave, or autosave reminder... what's so hard about that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it keeps old versions automatically. You know yourself that there may be many parts and sub asemblies and such so having to check each parts save may take a while. I suppose if you are designing you may not want to save a paticluar part.

 

I can't compare with solidworks, never used it.

 

Nick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...how does solidworks do it then? it allows the user the choice of autosave, or autosave reminder... what's so hard about that?

 

I found the SolidWorks reminder so annoying that I turned it off. Never bothered to look into turning on the autosave. In fact I've been turning off the AutoCAD autosave on every new install for nearly 20 years. I would advise the operator to learn to save their work.

 

Here is what R.K. McSwain has to say about autosave in a product that has autosave function -

 

http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=644248

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr T. - when you create several parts in an assembly you just give them generic names such as part1 etc... so it would be no more difficult then alowing it to save the generic names to your working directory, as your working once you identify which parts are going to stay in your assembly you can change the name to something more meaningful.

 

as for not using solidworks... it really is a treat, tonnes more useful features, and it's a stack easier to use.

 

JD - not everyone is such an elite drafter as yourself... most of us megre cad monkeys are still trying to master basic hand-eye co-ordination of the mouse and cursor, miles off being able to control the cursor with out mind. don't you think it's nice how solidworks and autocad allow for the differentiation between the megre cad monkey and elite super drafter by putting in a check box so you can uncheck it?? it's a pretty neat feature...

 

and your friend R.K McSwain should know that the ACAD autosave feature when accessed via the options dialogue has a tendency to "forget"... if you use the "savetime" variable it's flawlessly stable... trust me... i use it 8)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Working without an automatic save is a good practice to get into, but I concur that all programs should give you an option by default.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr T. - when you create several parts in an assembly you just give them generic names such as part1 etc... so it would be no more difficult then alowing it to save the generic names to your working directory, as your working once you identify which parts are going to stay in your assembly you can change the name to something more meaningful.

 

We save each part with logical names as we create it eg 25mm_bolt 25mm_bolt_wash etc. But as we design as well we need to test a part before saving everything in the assembly, so the way we work does suit no autosave. Autocad we do use autosave.

 

Nick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 years later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...