With the latest release of Fusion, a new format for the syntax in the help has been introduced. Although this change has been made for the Fusion help, the same help system is also used for Inventor so these changes can also be fairly easily made for the Inventor API help too. Because of that I would like to get feedback from both Inventor and Fusion users about this new format.
In the old help, the syntax was shown using a pseudo Python or Javascript syntax that represented that function as if you were writing the function. In Inventor it uses a VBA style syntax. It was pseudo code because it also included argument types which aren’t actually needed in Python or JavaScript but were include because they help to provide the full description.
Old Style
Below is an example showing the MirrorFeatures.createInput method in both Python and JavaScript.
And here’s an example of how properties were represented using the isSuppressed property of the MirrorFeature.
New Style
With the new syntax style it attempts to show how you would actually use the method, property, or event in your code. So instead of showing the format for the person developing the API, it’s showing the format for the person using it. It’s not really a runnable sample but in many cases is very close. Below is the new format for the same method and property illustrated above.
And here’s the syntax for the isSuppressed property.
There is also event specific syntax. A Python example is shown below. This illustrates fully what’s needed in order to implement that event.
You can see all of the new help at the Fusion Learning Site. Click the “Programming Interface” link and then use the table of contents to access the “Fusion 360 API Reference Manual” section, as shown below.
I Need Your Help
I can use your help with honest opinions about whether this new format is better than the old and then, with whatever format we continue with, su
ggestions about how to improve it. I know there is still a lot of room for improvement. Every time I use and look at the help I see some things that could be improved and I work on some of them in each release, but I’m sure some of you have some other and better ideas. Feel free to post comments here or you can also send them directly to me at brian.ekins@autodesk.com.
-Brian
Leave a Reply