Outside The Box blogs, Autodesk University anecdotes, articles, blog digests, and product news in chronological order. See Writing for the same material by subject.

Turning off InfoCenter in AutoCAD 2014

· Tools

The AcadInfoCenterOff.msi file on the ManuSoft Freebies page has been updated to support AutoCAD 2014 based products. Note that you must log out of Autodesk 360 if you disable the InfoCenter, else some versions of AutoCAD will crash during startup.

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C++ function declaration tips

· Programming

Creating and calling functions is one of the most fundamental tasks in C++ programming. The function declaration serves as the primary description of a function’s interface - or contract - with callers, thereby making it the most important piece of code documentation. A good function declaration should convey as much information as possible. I’m sure an entire book could be written on the topic of function interface design, but I’ll just touch briefly on a few factors to consider when designing a function’s interface. …

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Using /delayload to specify dependent DLL path

· Programming

Let’s say you have an ObjectARX module with an implicit dependency on another DLL. Your installer puts both your ARX module and the dependent DLL into a private application folder. Windows must be able to resolve the implicit DLL dependency at load time, otherwise it will fail to load your ARX module. Alas, Windows will not automatically search for the dependent DLL in your application folder, even though your ARX module is located there. Therefore your ARX module won’t load because the dependent DLL cannot be resolved. …

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