Pro/ENGINEER Tips & Tricks: Windows NT

After installation you will have additional shortcuts in the menu when you right-mouse-click on a folder.

• Since R20 you can only start external programs by creating a mapkey. You can do this with the mapkey dialogue (Utilities -> Mapkeys). When defining a new mapkey you can go to the OS script tab. There you can type in any command you would like to run.
• After that you can assign the mapkey to a certain menu through the Customize Screen utility or with the men_def.pro file.
• Use the start command to run applications in the background. This will give the controls back to Pro/E after the command has been started. Otherwise Pro/E keeps waiting for the program to finish (which could be of use if you run a recursive purge utility for instance)
• Here an example to start netscape with a page of an internal Intranet:

  mapkey hth @MAPKEY_NAMEIntranet Thread Help;\
  mapkey(continued) @MAPKEY_LABELStart the Intranet Thread Help;\
  mapkey(continued) @SYSTEMstart C:\\Progra~1\\Netscape\\Communicator\\Pro\
  mapkey(continued) gram\\netscape.exe http://intranet-server/proe/hand\
  mapkey(continued) book/parts.html\#threads;
  

• When using the start command you can even just point to a file. The start command will then run the program which is in windows associated to that extension.
  Example, suppose you've associated notepad to the .out extension. Then you can use this mapkey to view the std.out file in your working dir:

  mapkey vstd @MAPKEY_NAMEView std.out;\
  mapkey(continued) @MAPKEY_LABELView std.out in Working Dir;\
  mapkey(continued) @SYSTEMstart std.out;