Tool on ManuSoft

Building a commercial grade lisp plugin installer in 5 easy steps

Tue, 18 Feb 2014 01:36:34 +0000

Rumors about the death of AutoLISP have been floating around for many years, but fear not, those rumors are greatly exaggerated. Bricscad and ZWCAD both have excellent support for lisp plugins, so well-written lisp code is truly cross-platform and enjoys a large and growing audience. Unlike other languages, the vast majority of lisp code works unmodified on any hardware architecture, in any version of Windows, and inside any host application that supports it, including AutoCAD versions released more than a decade ago. On top of that, OpenDCL gives lisp developers the power of a modern event-driven user interface that can put their lisp plugins on the same playing field as plugins written in any other language. This is a powerful combination, and given lisp’s low entry cost, it is not surprising to see lisp continuing to enjoy strong support in the developer community.

QuirkyPolyline: exposing foolish programmers

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:38:45 +0000

In AutoCAD, the AcDbCurve class defines a general parametrized curve. On a parametrized curve, points in space are mapped to real numbers (parameters) by an arbitrary function F(p) for values of p from the curve start parameter to the curve end parameter. Defining a curve this way simplifies working with complex 3D curves because one can work in the curve’s one dimensional “parameter space” instead of the more complex three dimensional cartesian space.

RoboCache for Windows offline files cache management

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:50:27 +0000

I’ve written before about RoboCache, a command line utility I wrote for managing the offline files cache in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and now Windows 8. After using the utility internally for a few years, I decided that I might as well clean it up and make it available to the rest of you. RoboCache is now available at the ManuSoft web site. There is a shareware version available, and you can purchase the registered version at the ManuSoft store (cost is 25 USD for a single user license).

ObjectARX Wizard for Visual Studio 2010

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:04:33 +0000

If you’re an ObjectARX programmer, you may still be using Visual Studio 2008 because you’ve been told that you must. It’s true that you need Visual Studio 2008 installed to compile native ObjectARX code, but with Daffodil you can do all your work in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE.

AutoCAD 2012 InfoCenter

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:44:00 +0000

If you’re upgrading to AutoCAD 2012, don’t forget to also disable InfoCenter (unless you really need it). Just download and install AcadInfoCenterOff to disable it on any version of AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT. If you already have AcadInfoCenterOff installed, you can just run a repair install to apply it to a newly installed instance of AutoCAD 2012.

What's the diff?

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:32:31 +0000

One of the required tools in a programmer’s toolbox is a tool for comparing files. File comparison utilities have come a long way since the original Unix diff command, but this genre of utilities is still referred to as diff tools. For Windows, I use an open source diff utility called WinMerge. WinMerge includes a shell extension that makes it easy to use from within Windows Explorer.

Windows offline files

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 13:20:03 +0000

Do you use the Windows offline files feature? I asked this question of some IT/CAD administrator types at Autodesk University last week, and was surprised to find that most didn’t even know what it was. In fact, of the dozen or so people I asked, only one actually used the feature.

Disable AutoCAD InfoCenter

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:44:38 +0000

Over the years, I and others have provided instructions for turning off the AutoCAD InfoCenter (or Communication Center in older versions). The instructions are different depending on the AutoCAD version. To make things simple, I decided to roll them all up into a single one-size-fits-all MSI file that disables InfoCenter for any and all versions of AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT in one fell swoop.

Visual Studio 2010 Native Multi-Targeting

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 02:16:19 +0000

I was hoping that Microsoft would address the need to target earlier versions of Visual Studio within the Visual Studio 2010 IDE, but since they decided to punt, I tackled the problem myself. I’ve released my solution as an open source project named Daffodil for Visual Studio.

AECOPEN Utility

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:07:00 +0000

James Maeding of Hunsaker & Associates contacted me recently about an irritating problem that his users have with the AECOPEN command in Land Desktop. The AECOPEN command replaces the core AutoCAD OPEN command in AEC verticals. The problem they have is that AECOPEN displays an initial project dialog that requires users to press a [Browse] button to open the file browser dialog. Since they want to browse for a file every time they use the AECOPEN command, James wondered if I could create some code to automatically “press” the Browse button every time the AECOPEN command is issued.

I whipped up a little utility for AutoCAD 2007-2009 based products to do what James wanted, and it is now available on my freebies page as AecAutoOpen.zip. When the ARX module is loaded, AECOPEN behaves as if the user had immediately pressed the [Browse] button on the project dialog. If the [Ctrl] key is pressed, AECOPEN reverts to its original behavior.

Why not just use the built in OPEN command instead? The AECOPEN command has some important side effects, according to James.

ManuSoft Software Updated for AutoCAD 2009

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:10:00 +0000

QuikPik and Periscope are now available for AutoCAD 2009, and SuperPurge will be available later this week. QuikPik users, note that the quick buttons feature does not work with buttons on the new ribbon UI.

QuikPik, Periscope, SuperPurge Updated for AutoCAD 2008

Fri, 04 May 2007 01:59:00 +0000

If you use of any of these ManuSoft products, preliminary AutoCAD 2008 support has been available for several weeks at the Download Center for registered users. The QuikPik and Periscope updates are now officially released, and the shareware versions of QuikPik and Periscope are now available as well. SuperPurge will be officially released in the next week or so.

My free AcadStatusBarButton library has also been updated for AutoCAD 2008, and is now available for download on the Freebies page. The only change is the addition of a blank status bar pane beneath your floating buttons so that the new annotation scale buttons in AutoCAD 2008 don’t get covered up (the blank panes force the annotation scale buttons to the left of your custom buttons). If your button position is fixed (i.e. not floating), the blank pane will not be used.

As always, if you encounter any problems, please let me know!