Plugin dialog design with INP

Updated: 13 May 2019

The user interface, or dialog, of a Tekla Open API plugin can be defined using the same definition language as Tekla Structures custom components and system components: input file format (INP).

INP file examples

Open Windows Explorer and find \TeklaStructures\<version>\applications\steel1\ts_page_1.inp file.

The file xeng_page_1.inp in the same folder contains also documentation.

Editing INP files

Edit .inp files without re-starting Tekla Structures by adding the following line to user.ini:

set XS_DYNAMIC_INPUT_FILE=TRUE

An Update button appears on all .inp based dialogs and pressing it will reload the .inp definitions.

All plugin INP files are re-created at startup. You can disable this by adding the following line to teklastructures.ini:

set XS_DO_NOT_OVERWRITE_PLUGIN_INP_FILE=TRUE

Naming the plugin

The plugin name will appear in the Applications & component catalog, and it has to be unique. You cannot have two plugins with the same name.

When using INP for dialog definition, define plugin name the following way:

[Plugin("BeamPlugin")] 
    ... 
    public class UserInterfaceDefinitions 
    { 
        public const string Plugin1 = @"" + page(""TeklaStructures"","""") 
        { 
            plugin(1, BeamPlugin) 
            { 
                ... 
            }

Note that in the above the plugin name, "BeamPlugin", must be the same in both.

Plugin names cannot contain spaces. If a plugin is named for example "Beam Plugin", it is not possible to open dialog ("Beam Plugin.inp") from Tekla Structures Applications & component catalog.