Good Afternoon.
I run 2 CAD programs - Solidworks and Altium. Altium is a PCB design package. When designing a PCB, my right hand is constantly going from the trackball to the keyboard. The keyboard is used for flipping board layers, zooming in and out, etc. while the right hand is working on routing an active signal.
'
I bought a USB SpaceExplorer more for this than Solidworks. I am running XP.
WHen I try to set the SpaceExplorer up in while I am in Altium, the only keys that work in Altium are the ESC, SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT keys. I try to record macros to assign the '-', '+', and '*' The ones on the numeric keypad, not the qwerty) and I get nothing.
ONly the ESC, CTRL, SHIFT, and ALT keys work. What am I doing wrong? It seems like this should be straightforward.
CAE Support
Moderator: Moderators
Hi Embedded,
Your keyboard macros don't work in Altrium because it is not a natively supported application. The driver normally does not talk to applications that don't open a connection to it first. There is though an undocumented setting that you can use for unsupported applications. It is a bit of work because this functionality is not exposed through the GUI.
You have to create a config file for this application and tell the driver that it should not expect a connection from the application.
A) Start with the userXX.scg file that you already have been trying to use. The userXX.scg files are stored under %APPDATA%. Rename it to Altrium.scg and move it into the 3DxWare/en_us/profiles/default directory (change your path as needed).
B) Edit that file with notepad. Make sure it saves it as a Unicode file.
C) Change the following line:
TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL = something or other, probably NO_TRANSPORT
to
TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL = WIN32_KEYBOARD
And the following line:
EXECUTABLES = { "*.*" }
to
EXECUTABLES = { "Altium.exe" } (or whatever the executable name of the Altium application is)
D) Save this file (as Unicode) and cycle the driver.
E) Open the Altium application and then the driver GUI and choose your new configuration inside the GUI. You only have to do this once. The driver will store the relationship between the app and this config for use in the future.
Let me know if your macros work now.
Jim
3Dx Software Development
Your keyboard macros don't work in Altrium because it is not a natively supported application. The driver normally does not talk to applications that don't open a connection to it first. There is though an undocumented setting that you can use for unsupported applications. It is a bit of work because this functionality is not exposed through the GUI.
You have to create a config file for this application and tell the driver that it should not expect a connection from the application.
A) Start with the userXX.scg file that you already have been trying to use. The userXX.scg files are stored under %APPDATA%. Rename it to Altrium.scg and move it into the 3DxWare/en_us/profiles/default directory (change your path as needed).
B) Edit that file with notepad. Make sure it saves it as a Unicode file.
C) Change the following line:
TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL = something or other, probably NO_TRANSPORT
to
TRANSPORT_PROTOCOL = WIN32_KEYBOARD
And the following line:
EXECUTABLES = { "*.*" }
to
EXECUTABLES = { "Altium.exe" } (or whatever the executable name of the Altium application is)
D) Save this file (as Unicode) and cycle the driver.
E) Open the Altium application and then the driver GUI and choose your new configuration inside the GUI. You only have to do this once. The driver will store the relationship between the app and this config for use in the future.
Let me know if your macros work now.
Jim
3Dx Software Development
Hi Rich,
The application needs to be changed to recognize data from the SpaceNavigator. Please contact the Altium Designer developer and ask them to support it. That's the only way it gets done. We can talk to them until we are blue in the face, but they really only listen to customers. We'd be happy to help them integrate the product, but it has to be initiated by a paying customer. It only takes a couple of days of their time.
BTW, they also listen if you point out that one of their competitors supports it <G>
Jim
3Dx Software Development
The application needs to be changed to recognize data from the SpaceNavigator. Please contact the Altium Designer developer and ask them to support it. That's the only way it gets done. We can talk to them until we are blue in the face, but they really only listen to customers. We'd be happy to help them integrate the product, but it has to be initiated by a paying customer. It only takes a couple of days of their time.
BTW, they also listen if you point out that one of their competitors supports it <G>
Jim
3Dx Software Development
Last edited by jwick on Thu Aug 02, 2007 6:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
we'll see what happens