topic Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory in Customization

Mapkey to open an app in working directory

RaphMORIN — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 08:57:09 GMT

Hello all,

I have a mapkey (ex) that opens the windows explorer in the working directory. I have recently switched to directory opus as an alternative explorer. I would like to make a macro that launches directory opus in the working directory. Do you know how I could achieve that ? How would you do ?

Thanks.

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

KenFarley — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 13:04:26 GMT

Maybe this past discussion is helpful?

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Customization/How-to-open-external-file-with-Mapkey/td-p/438675

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

RaphMORIN — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:20:21 GMT

Thanks for the tip. I'm just wondering how I could pass the working directory as argument to my command line ?

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

MikePhillips — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 15:13:09 GMT

This may help you. When you use "Open System Window" to open a command prompt in the current session it always opens to the location of the working directory.

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

remy — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 15:19:21 GMT

If you refer to this Directory Opus, you might as well request assistance to them directly.
I know that Direct Folders from Code Sector enables to switch browse automatically like :

Open a directory in Windows Explorer
Leave Explorer open
Then switch to Creo or any other application, when File > Open, the explorer lands on the above directory directly

The workflow is a little different but it saves lots of clicks.

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

Chris3 — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 15:28:56 GMT

There may be an easier way to do this, but this way would work:

1. You have a mapkey that calls File-> Help -> System information -> System information

2. In the message window it will display the path of your working directory along with the file support.inf.1

3. You mapkey opens the message log (Tools -> Message Log) and then saves that message log file to a text file with a known file path.

3. You mapkey calls a vbs file that opens the message log file in step 3 above and extracts the working directory path from the message log and then hands that path off to your other program to open.

I gave a PTC/User presentation that walks through some of these steps here:
https://community.ptc.com/sejnu66972/attachments/sejnu66972/customization/13797/1/VG-4052%20Dynamic%20Mapkeys%20to%20Automate%20Creo%202024-01-23.pdf

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

RaphMORIN — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 07:58:11 GMT

Thanks all for your help.

Finally I made it using Autohotkey. The only thing, I had to add a few pause in the script (Sleep command) because the script was too fast to copy the working directory. Sometimes it was working, sometimes not. Now it works 100%. 😁

I had never used Autohotkey before, it's quite easy to learn.

Here's the script if anyone is interested.

!e:: ; Raccourci ALT+E
Send {Alt}
Send f
Send m
Send w
Send {Tab}
Send {Tab}
Sleep 100
Send {Space}
Sleep 100
Send ^c
Sleep 100
Send {Esc}
Run, dopus.exe "%Clipboard%"
return

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

Radovan_DT — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:05:11 GMT

I think this will help you a lot! You can change path to your dopus.exe instead of my batch file

mapkey xd @MAPKEY_LABELautoimport;~ Command `ProCmdDwgTblSaveasText` ;\
mapkey(continued)\ @SYSTEM "C:\\Users\\Admin\\Desktop\\personal\\autoimport\\tpv.bat";

Re: Mapkey to open an app in working directory

RaphMORIN — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:19:58 GMT

Thanks for the tip, but for now it doesn't work.

I wrote this in mapkey file

mapkey ed @MAPKEY_LABELOuvrir directory opus dans répertoire de travail;~ Command `ProCmdDwgTblSaveasText` ;\
mapkey(continued)\ @SYSTEM "C:\\Program Files\\GPSoftware\\Directory Opus\\dopus.exe";

It does open directory opus but not in the working directory.

I also get this message in the status bar in Creo :

14:18 Erreur de macro clavier : Invalid trail file line : No palette found for command 'ProCmdDwgTblSaveasText' in context 'context_main_dlg_w1'.