Being Inventive

Create your own Inventor tutorial

I am excited to announce that the Learning Experience (LX) team at Autodesk has published a quick start guide on Autodesk Exchange that explains how to create your own Interactive Tutorial for use in Inventor 2013 and customize the Welcome Screen!!!

What this really means is that ***we just empowered our users to create new content****

When you search for "Inventor tutorial" on Autodesk Exchange, you will see this:

 You can also browse directly to the download locations of the Inventor 2013 Interactive Tutorial Guide App on Autodesk Exchange

• 64bit - http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/Detail/Index?id=appstore.exchange.autodesk.com%3ainteractivetutorialguide%3aen

   

• 32bit - http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/Detail/Index?id=appstore.exchange.autodesk.com%3ainteractivetutorial-32bit%3aen

   

Click the Free button to download.

The App installs a Quick Start guide, an MP4 video, and two starter templates.

You can provide direct feedback on the App to: learning_app@autodesk.com

Be sure to give the App a review!!!

Thanks

Bob

Inventor 2013 literature for commuters

Our learning experience team has released some interesting new PDF files, posted on the Help wiki.

This is information that was previously available in wiki and chm format but that now can be read at a more leisurely pace as a book on your laptop, PC or tablet.

It might be a good way of spending your time while you are on the go or while you are waiting for the plane, train, bus, taxi or rickshaw.

Here is a summary list of the new PDF.

What's New	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0000-What_s_N0#pageFiles
Inventor tutorials	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/0127-Inventor127
Tooling	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/0807-Tooling_807#pageFiles
Cable and Harness	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/0904-Cable_an904#pageFiles
Tube and Pipe	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/1042-Tube_and1042#pageFiles
Dynamic Simulation	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/1111-Dynamic_1111
Stress Analysis	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/1163-Stress_A1163
Frame Analysis	http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/1257-Frame_An1257

 

These files are bit awkward to find when browsing the wiki. You will have to scroll all the way down on their respective pages.

Here is an example of the location of the "Inventor Tutorials" PDF in the Files section at the bottom of the page.

When context help does not show you the right context

I don't know about you but it has frustrated me tremendously in the 2012 release and it continues to be a sore point for me in the 2013 release:
Inventor's wiki Help is not bringing me to where I want to be in the Help. I'll give an example.
When I have the Application Options dialog open on the Drawing tab and I want to know what the Enable background updates option exactly means, I hit the context help icon "?".

Fig 1: Looking for Help on the Enable background updates option …

This brings me to the following wiki Help page.

Fig 2: Application options context help but no sign of Enable background updates option

The problem is that this Help page is collapsed and shows me the top level help for the Application Options.
I want help on an item at a much deeper level than that. Of course I can try to expand several sections in an attempt to find what I was looking for but this is time consuming.
So the reason for my blog post is to show you a much snappier method to get to the context help.

The first step is to avoid the wiki help by downloading the full Inventor 2013 Help and storing it on your local drive.
If you have installed Inventor in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2013, place the local help in the folder C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2013\Local Help.

However after doing all this, when you press F1, Inventor still brings you to the wiki.

This is because Inventor's Help reacts differently depending on whether you are connected to the Internet or not

• With internet connection, F1 brings you to http://wikihelp.autodesk.com
• Without internet connection, F1 brings you to the help on your local disk drive

Assuming that most us would not want to give up their Internet connection J, here are the steps to prevent Inventor from searching for the wiki (even if you have a working internet connection).

• locate the file called HelpIds.xml in the Inventor Bin folder (the default location is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2013\Bin)
• Open HelpIds.xml in any text editor
• Search for the section that contains the string "UseOnline"

  <URL

        UseOnline="1"

        Redirect="REDIRECT_"

        OnlinePrefix="http://"

        OnlineWIKI="wikihelp.autodesk.com/?adskContextId="

        OnlineSearchWIKI ="wikihelp.autodesk.com/search?q="

        OnlineSuffix="&amp;language=&amp;release=&amp;product="

        OfflinePrefix="file:///"

        OfflineHelp="Local Help\contexthelp\"

        ErrorPage="Local Help\HELP_INFORMATION"

        OfflineSuffix=".htm"

        />

• Change the UseOnline value from the default 1 to 0.

  <URL

        UseOnline="0"

        Redirect="REDIRECT_"

        OnlinePrefix="http://"

        OnlineWIKI="wikihelp.autodesk.com/?adskContextId="

        OnlineSearchWIKI ="wikihelp.autodesk.com/search?q="

        OnlineSuffix="&amp;language=&amp;release=&amp;product="

        OfflinePrefix="file:///"

        OfflineHelp="Local Help\contexthelp\"

        ErrorPage="Local Help\HELP_INFORMATION"

        OfflineSuffix=".htm"

        />

• Save the xml file

Once the local help kicks in, the context help ends up much closer to where you want to be than with the wiki help.
In my previous example of the Drawing Application Options, you will land in the Drawing Tab section of the Application Option help.

Fig 3: Help shown much closer to the context (before expansion)

It is just a matter of expanding the Capacity/Performance section to see the help on Enable background updates.

Fig 4: Help after expansion

Purists will say that the local help is static and does not benefit from the continuous updates that the wiki help receives.
Personally, I can live with that limitation. I prefer a speedy out-of-date version over a slow up-to-date version.
I know where I can find the latest and greatest Help if need be…

Bob

Working with Large Assemblies WikiHelp page

We have created a WikiHelp page related to working with large assemblies in Inventor.

We’ve combined several white papers, training documents, and other documents to create this resource.

We encourage you to not only reference this page to help with your Inventor designs, but also contribute to it with your experiences and workflows.

We hope you find it useful.

Live Update not so live?

We just got a report that when you install Inventor 2012 on the same machine where you have previously installed 2011 or 2010, the Live Update functionality in Communication Center in the older releases 2010 and 2011 will no longer function properly.
Communication Center will always report that your product is up-to-date even if you don't have the latest service pack installed.

 

The bottom line is: please check the Inventor download site instead to get an accurate picture of what service packs are available.

Or even better subscribe to this RSS feed to be kept up-to-date on new updates and service packs.

Just for the record, as of today the latest service packs can be downloaded here

R2010 Sp4

R2011 Sp2

Note : R2012  has no service pack yet but we are working on it.

Thanks
Bob

Wiki CAD/IT MGR Forum is now LIVE

The Wiki CAD/IT MGR Forum is now LIVE!

 

The goal of this wiki forum is to build a robust and vibrant community sharing site for Inventor, Product Design Suite and Factory Design Suite CAD and IT Mangers.

The CAD and IT Managers’ Forum provides links to get you to the information you need for installing, licensing and deploying Inventor, the Product Design Suites and Factory Design Suites. 

 

This is the official single point of entry to your installation needs for Inventor, the Product Design Suites and Factory Design Suites. This  community based forum contains both Autodesk content and user content. Create and edit content, post comments, collaborate!

Infocenter search no longer searches in newsgroups

As reported in this newsgroup post, starting from 2012 you can no longer search in newsgroups from within the Inventor product. We removed the Web locations search from Infocenter.

Here are some screen shots showing the differences between 2011 and 2012 for comparison. 

Infocenter search settings in 2011 :

 

Infocenter search settings in 2012:

 
Note that the Search locations node disappeared altogether because the remaining search locations are all included in the wiki.

Please use the newsgroup search going forward if you want to search for information in newsgroup posts.

Thanks

Bob

Using the Inventor 2012 Full Help even if you are on-line

You have downloaded and installed the Inventor 2012 Full Help from here and for performance reasons you want to use it, instead of the help from the Wiki, even when you are on-line.

Of course, you can simply create a shortcut on your desktop and have it point to, for instance:

<install folder> \Inventor 2012\Help_Full \index.html

But if you want to access  the help from within the context of the product or from within a dialog, do the following.

• Edit the file <install folder> \Inventor 2012\Bin\HelpIds.xml in Notepad
• Find the string “UseOnline”
• Change the value from 1 to 0 and save the file.
• Restart Inventor.

Note. Be aware that by downloading and using the help on a local drive, you have chosen to work with a snapshot version of the Help that possibly is out-of-date, contrary to the Wiki help which at all times shows the most up-to-date help information

So, if you want to go back to the default behavior, that is, to use the help from the Wiki when you are on-line, set back the value for “UseOnline” to 1.

Ale