Solidworks Properties in Windows Explorer

I may be going nuts but I swear I once managed to display the custom
properties of Solidworks files in the "Details" view of Windows Explorer.
But now I can't figure out how I did it. Has anyone else done this?

It may have been a different OS than my current one (XP) but I'm hoping MS
didn't remove something useful like that.

I know this really isn't a SW question but I tried over on an XP newsgroup
and noticed they're mostly trying to figure out how to install XP or
understand the error messages emitted from various trojan horses.

Thanks for any feedback,

Joel Moore

 

I'm aware of that one. I want to see the custom properties in a column in
Explorer.

I know it's technically possible. You can write what's called a "column
handler" shell extension that allows you to add whatever columns you want
to Explorer's detailed view.

I have this memory of getting really excited (in a geeky way) about seeing
my "PartNumber" custom property displayed in Explorer and being able to
sort on it. Maybe it WAS a dream.

Hmmm...maybe I'll try to write something myself...

 

I'm aware of that, too. That doesn't show any of the SW custom
properties--only the ones from the "Summary" tab and a bunch of properties
specific to some well-known media types.

I'm guessing either:

1) I imagined the whole thing.

2) I had done it a different way (i.e. used one of the standard properties
to hold the part number).

3) SW wrote a column handler but now it doesn't work with XP.

 

I never actually used SW Explorer that much. The few times I wandered into
it I was never all that impressed. I never understood why it didn't
automatically show whatever document I had open in SW.

 

while sw explorer may not be impressive it has some extremely useful
functions. the 2 functions I use most often, renaming files and find where
used.

 

It's a pity the API calls for SW Explorer are not readily availiable.
If they were we could write programs to view the images and Properties.

 

Why bother with a SW Explorer API? You can do much more with the SW API
(which is probably all the SWE is making use of). If someone was so
compelled, they could write a much better SW Explorer on their own.

Or are you saying that SWE does things not possible with the SW API? Maybe
it has access to "hidden" API's for SW's internal use?

Joel Moore

 

SWX Exp allows you to access the Config Specific Properties, without opening
Solidworks. Whereas, I do not believe you can do this with the regular SWX
API. Windows Explorer will only allow access to Custom Properties.
The API calls involved in SWX Explorer would provide the methods to do this
via Visual Basic.

 

I had to hunt for it but it looks like the CustomInfo2 method of the
ModelDoc2 object can be used for accessing configuration-specific
properties. But since it was only made available with SW 2001Plus, your
point about SWE having access to things the standard API doesn't is still
valid.

 

Thanks for the comment.
I agree with you. But I don't have any trouble accessing the info with
SolidWorks loaded.

 

SWX Exp allows you to access the Config Specific Properties, without
There was already some API code made that used calls from SWExplorer
(to access the preview bitmap) and then a SW support guy said it was
not a good way to do it, and supplied a .tlb to allow VB access to the
preview bitmap.


But the .tlb allowed ONLY access to the bitmap, not all the other
goodies contained in the structurd storage.

What you need to do is access the 'stuctured storage' of the SW docs;
to get the 'extended' info right from the document, without the need
for Solidworks, or Solidworks explorer, to be installed.

MS has a freebie .tlb that allows generic access to the structured
storage, but only to a certain depth... if one considers the 'storage'
to be 'directories', and the 'streams' to be 'files', then the MS .tlb
only allows reading of files in the root directory.

I made my own .tlb, but there are a few others out there, that will
allow tunneling down thru the structured storage. Aside from the
preview bitmaps,
and the config names, there is a HUGE amount of data there:

config info: whether configs are derived, alternate config names, etc

solids: there is a parasolid model for each config

update stamps: there seems to be time stamps for the creation/mod
dates for each feature, even when some features were deleted. But
this, like the API version, doesnt seem totally reliable.

version history: dlls, versions used, etc

... and plenty more I havent decoded yet.

Also, aside from the speed increase to get this data, opening from the
structured storage gives you more flexibility on knowing ahead of time
whether the model is being worked on; you can tune this down to the
cinfiguration level (Open and read only if Model is not in use, or
open and read only if a certain CONFIG is not in use, etc)

 

In the .NET section of this guy's site (Eduardo Morcillo) there is a free
wrapper for accessing SS files.

http://www.mvps.org/emorcillo/

Not sure how it stacks up to other implementations but here's a look at the
sample app packaged with it (looking at a SW part file):

http://www2.primushost.com/~jlmoore/images/ss-view.gif

His test program doesn't display the config-specific properties but I think
that's only because he had Office documents in mind when he made this
sample.

Joel Moore