What's with Propa-Gator

---- Managed to get a whole nights sleep last night, didn't even feel like getting up and starting SolidWorks.

Agreed, Propa-Gator is a very useful tool, must have saved me days of work by now. When I first installed it then reinstalled it a few times, trying to get the help working --- I nearly dropped it into the Recycle Bin. The interface is a little quirky and it did take me a while to trust it, after testing it on a backed up SolidWorks folder.

Brenda may have dropped development of Propa-Gator as it simply is not producing enough revenue to justify the work involved, I think this a problem with a lot of third party software?

John Layne

I run across Brenda every now and then (that sounds like I step on her). She's recently switched her employment venue (I think she's doing custom stuff on a contract basis). She's still very dedicated to the SolidWorks environment, demonstrated by the advents she attends and everywhere I see and discuss new Solidworks features and Propa-Gator's marketing potentials with her (I'm still trying to get my company to see it's benefits and purchase the full version [yep, they are cheap]).

I don't know what new features could be added to Propa-Gator for version 3, but maybe if some of you were to make some constructive suggestions, she may have something to help her to direct her efforts to enhance Propa-Gator version 3 in her spare time.

OK, now for the geeky engineering type guy, she's a blonde and cute, so give her a break, we all have a life and I'm sure she does also! If she had some direct input from users, I know she'd make those changes.

Keith

"John Layne" > thought instead of replying to John (sleepy) Layne (if you don't get it

Keith Streich - "we all have a life"

Speak for yourself ;-)

Propa-Gator is a great programme, once you get to know how to use it. As for constructive suggestions, I can't think of any -- only to fix the help file for new users.

John Layne

Wow, Keith, I thought that made it really clear that I was NOT bashing anyone or even Propa-Gator for that matter. I was just trying to make a point that the help file is a very important piece of the software puzzle.

I hope I didn't offend Brenda at all!

Muggs

Keith Streich wrote:

Not offended, but duly prompted.

In the mean time, I am most grateful to Ben Eadie for his innovative and well-executed podcast demo!

Brenda

Thanks Brenda,

I'm glad you were not offended; that certainly was not my intension. As far as constructive crits goes, I was wondering if it were possible to add being able to copy the document properties (part, assembly, and drawing) including lighting, from one file and populate (Propa-Gate) those to a group of files. Here's what I'm faced with a lot. I get some "half baked" assembly of "half baked" parts and I'm asked to "finish this". But I can't stand the way some of the lighting arrangements or document properties that some peeps have come up with, and I wind up drawing it all from scratch.

I know this my sound petty (and probably is) but it's annoying enough to me.

BTW, I know that there's the excel thing from the German dude, but that only does one file at a time. Although it does it VERY well.

Thanks, Muggs

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

Hmm...My last post does not seem to be showing up here... The gist of it was: Thanks for the good ideas, Muggs. I may come back to you for more specifics on how the Lighting thing should work.

--Brenda, CustomSolids

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You're welcome,

You can contact me directly if you like. Leave the numbers but take out "the trash" in my email to respond.

Muggs

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

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Constructive? Boy do I have one.

I have had to write my own code to do this but I could conceivably be written into PG. How about the ability to make an ODBC connection (Access for those in Rio Linda) and pull or push data to custom props from a database?

In other words:

Capability #1 IF Field in Record = Something THEN WRITE another Field to Custom Properties.

Capability #2 IF Config Specific Custom Property = Something THEN WRITE Custom Property to Database Record

A great enhancement would be to save the settings to a template so that when moving to a new machine. it's all there. Unless there is a way and I haven't seen it yet.

Yes, that is something I had thought of doing but was not sure if others would find it useful. Actually, I had been thinking of allowing any input set to be saved off in a named file that could be opened and re-used later (rather than just storing the last-run values). The input files could also be copied from one computer to another or stored on a network location. It's helpful to know that you think something along these lines would be useful. Currently there is no function for doing this directly, but a work-around could be to "propagate" the current settings into a dummy SW part and then have the other user read in the properties from that part (Click on "Replicate properties from sample file").

I may not be adding a lot of additional functions into Version 3 before release since it has become a (very) well tested Beta. I'll be adding in a help file and doing mostly "cosmetic" clean-up on it to get it ready for prime time. (If anyone is aware of other performance issues with Ver. 3 that haven't been addressed yet, please let me know... ) I can be reached off-NG at the e-mail listed in Contact Us on the customsolids.com website.

Your suggestion may be simple enough to incorporate into V3 at this point, but many of the more extensive suggestions will become part of a "New and Improved" Propa-Gator which I hope to start in on as soon as V3 is fully hatched. I really do appreciate all the constructive ideas. It's good to know people are really using the program!

Thanks! Brenda CustomSolids

On Dec 8, 10:01 am, "pete"

I really do appreciate all the constructive > ideas. It's good to know people are really using the program!

Your program is a MAJOR part of my business, you alone have saved me from literally thousands of hours of frustration!

THANK YOU

Ben