General Question

When starting a new project, there are a few resources that I turn to. One resource is my own code library; a new project often consists largely of bits and pieces of code that I have already written, with only a little bit of new code to tie it all together. Another resource is the Siemens' solution center; GTAC regularly posts code snippets and full journals. In the search box, type "nxopen" and your search term of choice; for example if you want to create a datum plane you could search for "nxopen datum plane".

That said, the journal recorder is a great tool and, for many operations, often the first that I turn to. It is a great teacher of how to use the many NXOpen objects. The code will often include options that you are not interested in, so there will be some hand editing to be done, but it will give you a good foundation to build on. The key is to break down your overall process into small chunks and use the journal recorder to see how each chunk is accomplished. For example, let's say that given a planar face, you want to create a datum plane on the face, create a sketch on the plane, sketch a shape, and extrude the shape a certain distance. Start by recording a journal that creates a datum plane on a face. Clean up that code and turn it into a subroutine or function that, given a face object, will create a datum plane on it. Next up, record a journal of creating a sketch on a datum plane, clean up that code and add it to your existing code. Keep going with each step of the process and soon you will have a complete, working journal.

After completing a number of projects, you will find yourself reusing your own existing code more and more and using the journal recorder less and less.

I should also note that a good integrated development environment (IDE) is a very valuable tool. I use a free version of the Microsoft Visual Studio; the intellisense and autocomplete features make "typing" in the code super easy. See the resources page for more info on IDE's.