editing help

[bobgob]

Could someone please explain to me how I edit my gears after working on a newer project? Here is my scenario:

1) Create noncircular planetary gear and pinion with Wheel Order 4 and Pinion Order 2. All is good at this point.

2) Create a new noncircular planetary gear and pinion with different orders. All is good here too.

3) Now let's say you want to edit the step 1 gear. Open the .gth from step 1. The Project Tree is correct, but when you click on the noncircular gear tool, you get the gears from step 2. The log says "Tool shape load failed."

Actually, I get that error "Tool shape load failed" anytime I open any existing project.
Am I doing something wrong or are these bugs?

[ArtF]

Bob:

I opened the code to see what that error is. There is a file named tspin.dxf in your main folder. It is really just a shape holder for a machining tool display, just a shape that unless your using cnc output, isnt used anyway.. but.. you shouldn't get that error as it loads.. it would indicate your working folder isn't the one the executable is in. ( or the file is bad.. , but I cant see that..). I just tested here to be sure and the file loads properly.

Is that file in the folder? Are you running from any special folder location?

Regards
Art

[ArtF]

Bob:

Some of this I think I can see .. the values used in any gear creation are saved, so going back to another project will still have the values from your first project. When the program starts up, it loads the last gear created under any circumstances to the project screen. Its a pain, but part of the way the registry saving worked when the program was written, it doesn't save the values from project to project, just run to run.
The project screen cant see which pinion was created at the same time as each wheel, so the program never transferred a loaded project to the design screens.

Regards

ARt

[bobgob]

Hi Art,
You are correct. I was not saving my project in the C:\Gearotic Motion directory (or subdirectory thereof). That would never occur to me to save in the program directory. Wheew! I'm sure that's in the docs but I missed it. I think this should probably be in a future enhancement category but I can work with it.

Thanks so much,
Bob

[ArtF]

Hi Bob:

Thanks, I know the file handling is obscure, its the result mainly of age.. but it wont likely change
as I tend not to change Gearotic, there are too many copies out there and I try not to introduce bugs from
updated compilers. GT started with Visual Studio 2003 ( in 2006) , then 2013, 2015, then 2017.. each time you never know what changes.
So GT is in sleep mode, it isn't changed unless I absolutely have to. I'm now officially old, and try not to complicate
things by switching it to VS2022 which has new rules for some of that archaic code. :)

Any additions to Gearotic for the past couple years are just things I write for fun and add in. This will likely continue
that way till my keyboard tells me to let it go. Its been a fun run and an interesting development experience. From Mach3 to
now is about 22 years of coding, all after retiring from my original profession ( working on MRI machines. ), and all because
someone told me I couldn't do CNC on a PC so long ago because it was impossible for windows to run machines.

Windows now commonly runs machines, gear's can be had at many places now but when Gearotic was released they were rare
and hard to find. Non-circular gear dxf's where sold from china at 1000.00 a design, ( That's how old Gearotic is..). I'm happy people
like yourself still find it useful.

Regards
Art