Capture

The capture environment enables you to record a session in a log file and save it in a specified location in your local machine. The two Capture commands (highlighted in the image below) enable you to record to a log file all the actions performed during the application's working session, until you select the Stop  button (read Overview of the Capture & Playback interface).


Record

Starts a Capture session. The program displays a dialog box in which you should specify the name and location of the new log file to be saved. Now all the actions you perform are recorded to the log file, until you select the Stop command.
Append Record

Starts a Capture session in append mode. All the actions you perform are appended to the existing log file, until you select the Stop command. Before starting the recording session, an automatic Playback of the current log file is performed, so that the recording session starts at the end of the current log file.

Behavior of commands used to load documents

Commands used to load documents (such as Open, Insert from File or X-Ref Component or Insert from File) are stored to the log file during the recording session and will then be performed in the Playback session whether the original pathnames of files exist or not. In fact, when recording, the program creates an auxiliary folder with the same name as the current log file and in its same directory. Within this folder, a RelatedFiles folder is created, containing a copy of any file opened in the recording session using the mentioned commands. An index file ("index.txt") is also created, in order to keep relations between the original and the copied files.

A context tag file (a file with a ".ctx" extension created in a directory having the same name as the log file) is automatically generated containing all the context tags used during a Capture session.


Context Tags and the Context Tag File

A context tag is an identifier of the context which you are working in; context tags can be very useful to develop quality assurance procedures and future statistics.
For example, if you select the New Document command, the context tag is the following:

"New Document"

If, after selecting New Document you choose Model, Drawing, you'll have the following context tag:

"New Document""Model""New Document""Drawing"

as the ModelDrawing command is a second level command. 

A context tag file is an ASCII text file you can open and read with any text editor program (for example Microsoft® WordPad). A context tag (a file with a ".ctx" extension created in a directory having the same name as the log file) is automatically generated whenever you perform a Capture session.

For example, to build the solid on the right you had to:
  1. Open a new model document
  2. Create a rectangle
  3. Sweep the rectangle to build the box on the right
  4. Move the Work Plane onto the front face of the box
  5. Create a circle on the front face of the box
  6. Sweep the circle to build the cylinder.

and this is the context file you will automatically get if you capture the whole session:

[Head]

Test name             : 17Feb2009_1918
Description           : 
Comments              : 
Created with build    : 2009.1.108.490
Valid till build      : 
Generated by          : 
Company               : 
Support Center        : 
Class                 : 
Origin                : 
CPU Type              : pentium Model 2 Stepping 9
Performance indicator : 1290
Real Memory size      : 2047 MB
CPU Time              : 13s
Elapsed time          : 47s
Peak Memory Usage     : 206380 KByte
Page Faults           : 9521
Page File Size        : 194608 KByte

Level 1               : 0;0
Level 2               : 0;0


[Summary]

Weight   No.   Context used
     0;     1; "Feature" "Linear Sweep" "Protrusion" 
     0;     1; "Arc" "Center" 
     0;     1; "Work Plane" "Set on Face" 
     0;     1; "Feature" "Linear Sweep" "New Solid" 
     0;     1; "Rectangles & Polygons" "Rectangle" 
     0;     1; "New Document" "Model" 


[Details]

Line:299       "New Document" "Model" 
Line:306       "Rectangles & Polygons" "Rectangle" 
Line:315       "Feature" "Linear Sweep" "New Solid" 
Line:348       "Work Plane" "Set on Face" 
Line:351       "Arc" "Center" 
Line:365       "Feature" "Linear Sweep" "Protrusion"
The [Head] section contains information about the hardware and software environment and customer data fields you can fill in if you need to send a Capture & Playback package to your Support Center.

The [Summary] section contains all the context tags that were used during the session, ordered by their occurrence number (No.) and with the additional Weight information that will be useful to the Support Center.

The [Details] section contains a list of all the context tags in the same order they were used during the session, preceded by the line number of the log file they were saved to.

When the Create context tag file check box in the Playback options area is selected, another context tag file is generated when the Playback session is performed (a file with a ".ctr" extension created in a directory having the same name as the log file). The ".ctr" file has exactly the same structure as the ".ctx". A comparison between the ".ctx" and the ".ctr" files can be useful when debugging error situations.

Record

To record a session, do the following:

  1. Select Record button. The Capture & Playback dialog box is displayed, in which you can specify the log file name and location.




  2. In the Save in list box, choose the folder in which you want to save the log file.

  3. Specify the log file name in the File name text box.

  4. Select the Save button to save the log file.

  5. The following warning message is displayed, "All documents will be closed. This will cause the loss of changes. Are you sure you want to start capture on file 'C:\Models\logfile1.cp3'?"

    If you click No the recording session will not start.

  6. Make sure you have saved all the documents that might be open before proceeding, because once the recording session starts, all open files will be closed. After you've saved the files, click Yes to start the recording session. All the actions you perform hereafter are recorded to the log file.

  7. Note
    If you attempt to perform an action that is not allowed by the Capture & Playback functionality, the message Action displayed if Capture & Playback is active will be displayed. Click OK to continue.
  8. When you want to stop the recording session select Stop

  9. The current log file is immediately closed. All the actions you performed (except those not allowed by the Capture & Playback functionality) are stored in the log file.

Append Record

To append a new session to an existing log file follow the steps

  1. Select Append Record button. Before starting the recording session, an automatic Playback of the current log file is performed, so that the recording session starts at the end of the current log file.

  2. All the actions you perform hereafter are recorded to the log file.

  3. When you want to stop the recording session, click Stop button.

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