Menuing System

[Mordekai]

I've been tasked with coming up with some kind of menu system for operators so they don't have to sort through Windows directories or the program listings. I've tried getting the VB sample menu from the Wilcox site but can't get it to work.
Has anybody done this? Or something similar?
(BTW: The STI is out of the question. THEY WILL NOT spend the money.)

Thanks

[T Miller]

the start_pcdmis file on the wilcox site works is that the one?

[Mordekai]

No. It's the All_GUI from the Wilcox site.

[Underspec]

All_GUI uses the very old pcdmis object library. I think it's like 3.2 or something. It's written in VB6.0. So if you wanted to edit it and recompile you would need VB6.0. VB.NET (free version) won't convert this program. You are stuck with trying to develop your own. See the HELP file in pcdmis for "Automation" to get you started.

[craiger_ny]

What version of VB do you have?

[Underspec]

If you have VB6.0 just tell ALL_GUI to use your current version object library and should be good to go.

[cmmguy]

I've been tasked with coming up with some kind of menu system for operators so they don't have to sort through Windows directories or the program listings. I've tried getting the VB sample menu from the Wilcox site but can't get it to work.
Has anybody done this? Or something similar?
(BTW: The STI is out of the question. THEY WILL NOT spend the money.)

Thanks

This cracks me up. They will ask you to spend untold amount of hours to create a menu system but wont spend a 1000 bucks on a piece of software to do the job. Are they insane?

[Mordekai]

What a silly question!
This is management we're talking about: Of course they're insane!

Mordekai

[Underspec]

This cracks me up. They will ask you to spend untold amount of hours to create a menu system but wont spend a 1000 bucks on a piece of software to do the job. Are they insane?

Personally I would want my own employees developing the software. You don't want another SMA to pay for do ya?

Besides, when you have technical issues you have your own people in house troubleshoot them instead of having to pay and/or wait for someone to show up to fix stuff.

[#2#]

This cracks me up. They will ask you to spend untold amount of hours to create a menu system but wont spend a 1000 bucks on a piece of software to do the job. Are they insane?

Here is an e-mail I recieved today...

We had this discussion some time ago and we agreed to correctly tolerance the transducer hole on the new design manifolds. You are correct, but we didn’t want to spend the time on several drawings when they are going away.

That discussion was like 6 months to a year ago. That was in response to this e-mail...

We worked to analyze a problem we are having in assembly, and this is our understanding of the situation.

Please consider changing the tolerancing of the 806-306 manifold’s transducer port. Most likely, there are other manifolds with a similar callout which would also benefit from a change. The 11/16” Threaded Counterbore is pictorially shown to be coaxial with the .377” Diameter Bore, however, since they are both toleranced back to datums A and B they can be misaligned and still fall within the tolerance provided. The tolerance allows up to .0126” of axis misalignment (see below: (.010 + .0152)/2 = .0126). The current parts are misaligned by .0065” which causes the transducer to press against the .377 bore wall, giving us an erroneous pressure reading. Ideally, the 11/16"-24 UNEF-2B thread would have a tolerance of position using the .377 diameter as the datum. Doing this would ensure that the two bores are coaxial. The .377 diameter should still be toleranced to datums A and B to ensure that it intersects with the appropriate passages.

So guess what we recieved the other day? That's right, $8000 worth of scrap because they decided not to spend 8 hours (est. no more than 16 hrs for sure) of an engineers time to fix the drawing. What's that like $320 based on the engineer making $40 and hour?

[cmmguy]

Personally I would want my own employees developing the software. You don't want another SMA to pay for do ya?

Besides, when you have technical issues you have your own people in house troubleshoot them instead of having to pay and/or wait for someone to show up to fix stuff.

STI has been around for 10 years or longer. It is pretty stable and works awesome (or at least it did until hexagon got a hold of it). what would the SMA be on STI? $20/year. Unless I had a very unique interface need such as a parametric program interface, I would want my employees working on something that made the company money.

Would you also suggest that the company develop their own CAD system interface to load cad files easier if the CAD company already made one??

Hey dont get me wrong, if my boss said "Could you develop a user interface" and was going to give me the time to do it, I would be all over it!!

[Underspec]

Having your employees knowledgable in the software you are using is best. But if you want to spend the money I say go for it. Then again, if your employee leaves it would be the same as the company going out of business.

[Mordekai]

[QUOTE=cmmguy;

Hey dont get me wrong, if my boss said "Could you develop a user interface" and was going to give me the time to do it, I would be all over it!![/QUOTE]


I actually appreciate the opportunity to really dig in and do something I think would be "cool." Unfortunately, this is in addition to all my regular work, not in place of it.

[Underspec]

I actually appreciate the opportunity to really dig in and do something I think would be "cool." Unfortunately, this is in addition to all my regular work, not in place of it.

That's right. Plus it will be a nice addition to your resume. I say do all you can, and if you can't, learn it.

[craiger_ny]

So are you interested in a VB front end or not? If you are what version of VB do you have?