2011 ANSYS, Inc. December 3, 20121

Introduction to ACT

(Application Customization Toolkit)

2011 ANSYS, Inc. December 3, 20122

The scope of this training is to cover:

Introductory training for Application Customization Toolkit (ACT) in Workbench Mechanical

The scope doesnt cover

Scripting in the products Workbench (Python script at the schematic level), Mechanical (Jscript), MAPDL etc.

Other customization possibilities Custom GUI on WB, Wizards on DM/Mechanical, Connection with External

Applications etc.

ANSYS SDK (C# based Software Development Kit)

Goals of this Training

Training for these topics are available separately, on request

2011 ANSYS, Inc. December 3, 20123

PrerequisitesSoftware Required for Training

Workbench R14.5 Have ANSYS Customization Suite license to be able to develop ACT extensions

Visual studio professional 2008 or 2010, for debugging This is optional. But having this can help a lot in debugging ACT extensions

Free Express visual studio version is also compatible

A decent text editor for writing Python programs. Example: IDLE (http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/python-2.7.3.msi)

SharpDevelop (http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/Default.aspx)

Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus-plus.org)

Supports several languages (Python, JavaScript, XML, etc.)

A decent text editor for writing XML programs. Example: Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus-plus.org)

Supports several languages (Python, JavaScript, XML, etc.)

XML Notepad 2007 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7973)

User should be comfortable with the following before attending this training

APDL Python programming language

2011 ANSYS, Inc. December 3, 20124

Agenda Day 1

Title Duration Elapse time

01a-ACT Basics 1 hr 1 hr

01b-Introduction to XML and Python programming 30 min 1 hr 30 min

Break 15 min 1 hr 45 min

02-Introduction to IronPython Console extension 1 hr 2 hr 45 min

03-Walkthrough Workshop-1: Develop a custom loadextension (reuse APDL)

1 hr 3 hr 15 min

Lunch Break 1 hr 4 hr 45 min

04-Walkthrough Workshop-2: Develop a custom result extension

Via reuse of an APDL macro Via the Python APIs

1 hr 30 min 6 hr 15 min

05-Introduction to Some Advanced Topics 1 hr 7 hr 15 min

2011 ANSYS, Inc. December 3, 20125

Agenda Day 2

Title Duration Elapse time

06-Recap of day-1 30 min 30 min

07-Workshop-3: Develop a ACT custom result extension (using Python APIs)

1 hr 30 min 2 hr

Break 15 min 2 hr 15 min

08-Workshop-4: Develop a ACT custom load extension (reuse APDL)

2 h 4 hr 15 min

Lunch Break 1 hr 5 hr 15 min

09-Discussion on attendees problems 2 hr 45 min 8 hr