Mastering AutoCAD VBA by Marion Cottingham.
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Contents:
Part 1 • VBA Macros and the Visual Basic Editor
Chapter 1 • Developing a Simple VBA Application
Chapter 2 • Creating VBA Macros
Chapter 3 • Quick Tour of the IDE
Chapter 4 • VBA Programming Concepts
Part 2 • Drawing Lines and Solid Areas Using VBA Macros
Chapter 5 • The AutoCAD Object Model
Chapter 6 • Macro-izing Line Drawing
Chapter 7 • Macro-izing Solid Areas
Part 3 • Reusability and Customization
Chapter 8 • Templates and Reusability
Chapter 9 • Creating Drawings with Text
Chapter 10 • Debugging Your Code
Chapter 11 • Dimensioning Drawings from Your Own Menus and Toolbars
Chapter 12 • File Input and Output
Part 4 • 2D Drawing Techniques
Chapter 13 • Working with 2D Drawing Techniques
Chapter 14 • Grouping Objects
Part 5 • 3D Drawing Techniques
Chapter 15 • Creating and Drawing 3D Solids
Chapter 16 • ActiveX Controls
Chapter 17 • AutoCAD and the Internet
Appendix A • Object Models
Appendix B • ASCII Character Set
Index
Introduction: Autodesk first included Microsoft’s Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in AutoCAD Release 14. Combining the power of AutoCAD and Visual Basic provides endless opportunities for creating impressive customized applications ranging from streamlining the routine tasks you currently perform using AutoCAD to creating drawings in seconds that would normally take hours. The book takes you step-by-step through how to create macros to automate the routine tasks you currently do in AutoCAD.
It shows you how to create powerful Windows applications so that you can run your macros at the click of a button. You’ll quickly learn how much fun it is to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs) by simply dragging and dropping controls from a toolbox to a UserForm—you already do much the same thing when you develop drawings using AutoCAD. The material in this book is compatible with AutoCAD 14, AutoCAD 2000, and AutoCAD 2000i.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy developing code with all the pop-up help provided by the Visual Basic for Applications Integrated Development Environment (VBA IDE). If you’re lucky enough to be using AutoCAD 2000i with its new updated Heidi® graphics engine, you have access to its revolutionary Internet/intranet tools that enable you to publish drawings on the Web to speed up your design review process. You’ll enjoy the improvements to the Array interface that help you preview your results, and the extension to the 3D Orbit feature that allows lights, materials, and textures support while orbiting. You’ll also find that you can now ask questions of the Help facility, rather than having to guess at the name of a command, method, or property. And you’ll also notice an Active Assistant on display to provide additional help.
If you are not using AutoCAD 2000i and would like more information about it, go to Autodesk’s AutoCAD Product Center at the following URL. Here you can get product information, view an interactive demonstration, or (in the United States and Canada) order a free demo CD.
Who Should Read This Book This book:
assumes that the reader is already a casual user of AutoCAD and knows its fundamentals (opening and closing drawing files, interactively creating drawings, and so forth). The material in this book extends this knowledge by showing how to perform the same tasks from VBA code, and how to enhance AutoCAD by customizing additional interfaces that make it easier to perform some tasks. To the reader who wants to learn how to code macros in VBA, this book assumes no prior knowledge of VBA or any other programming language. It is the ideal book for AutoCAD users to learn how to write code to automate routine tasks.
This book provides you with the stepping stones needed to develop your very own macros and applications that run inside AutoCAD.
To the reader who has VBA programming experience from other applications, you’ll learn about the numerous objects and collections that AutoCAD has to offer and the methods and properties these contain.
Since most examples show how to perform a task first from the AutoCAD window and then from VBA code, readers with no coding experience will quickly see the relationships between how they perform a task in the AutoCAD window and the objects they need to use in code to perform the same task. The reader with coding experience will quickly see the relationships of the objects they use in code, to the drawing objects, options, and settings required for the AutoCAD window.
What’s In This Book:
This book takes you through the practical steps of creating powerful and time-saving VBA macros and applications. The focus is on automation aimed at saving time, increasing productivity, and producing complex drawings at the click of a button.
The book is divided into five parts:
Part 1: VBA Macros and the Visual Basic Editor
Part 1 shows you how to develop your first application and takes you on a quick tour of the Visual Basic Editor. You’ll also be introduced to some VBA programming concepts that you’ll find useful as a reference as you progress through the book.
Chapter 1 provides step-by-step instructions for developing a simple application that requires a GUI, containing controls from the VBA Toolbox that are coded to respond to a user’s actions.
Chapter 2 shows you how to create macros that can run on their own or be used to start an application. You’ll learn to make the most of the IDE’s powerful editing features.
Chapter 3 takes you on a quick tour of the IDE, showing you how to access its various windows. You’ll also see how to display some of the toolbars, and how to make the best use of the Help facility.
Chapter 4 covers all the programming concepts you need for getting well underway as an AutoCAD VBA programmer. You’ll find it useful to have all this information in one location rather than dispersed throughout the book—it’s much easier to come back to later.
Part 2: Drawing Lines and Solid Areas Using VBA Macros
Part 2 is your tutor for using objects from the AutoCAD Object Model—lines, circles, and freeform shapes—and how to fill areas with color.
Chapter 5 shows the hierarchical structure of the AutoCAD Object Model. You’ll see how to access its objects from code.You’ll work through what’s required to communicate with users via message boxes, and learn how to send a command to the AutoCAD command line from a macro.
Chapter 6 covers drawing lines and setting their attributes (linetype, color, and thickness) from a macro. You’ll also see how to scale drawing objects from a macro.
Chapter 7 demonstrates drawing circles and freeform shapes and filling them with color. The points defining the freeform shapes are selected by the user, and the values of the coordinates are passed to a macro.
Part 3: Reusability and Customization
In Part 3, you’ll fashion an AutoCAD template and create a new drawing document from code. You’ll see how to design a new group of menu commands and toolbar buttons in the AutoCAD window to run your macros, and how to read and write data to a file.
Chapter 8 shows how to set the AutoCAD environment settings and make a template drawing from a macro. It compares macros and templates from the point of view of reusability, and introduces User Coordinate System (UCS) concepts applicable to AutoCAD VBA programming.
Chapter 9 describes the process of creating a new drawing document from a macro and how to create polar and rectangular arrays. You’ll also see how to display text from a macro, and how to format numbers, dates, and times.
Chapter 10 introduces you to the many debugging features found in the IDE. It talks about various kinds of errors you may encounter. You’ll see how you can watch the values of variables change as the code is executed.
In Chapter 11, you’ll add a new group of menu commands to the AutoCAD window and create toolbar buttons for quick access to these new commands.
Chapter 12 discusses how to transfer data to and from files, and how to add a Common Dialog control to display the Windows Open and Save As dialog boxes.
Part 4: 2D Drawing Techniques
Part 4 discusses interactive drawing techniques using the snap and grid features. You’ll see how to group objects and set group attributes.
Chapter 13 discusses interactive drawing techniques for increased precision, including grid and snap. It tells you how to create and manipulate a spline curve, and how to animate the movement of a drawing object.
Chapter 14 demonstrates the grouping of objects into layers or blocks so that they can be handled as single entities. It shows how to freeze and thaw layers and how to lock and unlock them.
Part 5: 3D Drawing Techniques
Part 5 describes the creation and drawing of 3D solids and how to view them from different angles using the 3D Orbit control.
In Chapter 15, you’ll create a range of primitive solids and combine them using union, intersection, and subtraction operators.
You’ll also see how to create solids using extrusion and revolution, how to remove hidden lines, and how render solids with full color—from your VBA macro.
In Chapter 16, you’ll explore the exchange of data among other Microsoft applications, using objects from Excel, Access, and Word as examples.
Chapter 17 discusses AutoCAD 2000i’s latest Internet features. You’ll see how to launch your Web browser from code, validate URL addresses, and open and save drawings on the Internet. You’ll use the Publish to Web Wizard that creates the HTML files for your very own Web pages. You’ll also see how to add hyperlinks to a drawing.
This book also features two bonus chapters (18 and 19) on the CD, which extend your skills in several areas. See “What’s On the CD” later in this Introduction.
Appendices:
The book’s appendices provide easy-reference tools to help you find the AutoCAD information you need—when you need it. Appendix A presents the AutoCAD Object Model so you can see how to access objects throughout the hierarchy. It also gives you a look at several other Microsoftfamily object models so that you can see the strong similarities between them.
Appendix B lists all the ASCII symbols in a handy, one-stop reference table for your convenience.
Mastering AutoCAD VBA by Marion Cottingham pdf.
Book Details:
⏩Author: Marion Cottingham
⏩Copyright © 2001 SYBEX Inc
⏩Language: English
⏩Pages: 698
⏩Size: 9.26 MB
⏩Format: pdf
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