Tools

[Update: See Visual Studio 2010 Native Multi-Targeting] Many of you use my VC Build Hook utility to target multiple versions of AutoCAD from a single solution in Visual Studio 2008. Visual Studio 2010 now includes a new feature called native multi-targeting that performs the same function as VC Build Hook. The new feature works great for using build tools back to VC 7.1, but it does not work with VC 7, which is required for targeting AutoCAD versions 2006 and earlier. ...

[Update: See Disable AutoCAD InfoCenter] In case you missed it, Tony Tanzillo has posted instructions (http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=721735&tstart=1) for disabling the InfoCenter in AutoCAD 2010. AutoCAD 2010 starts faster when the InfoCenter is disabled. To make it easy, I’ve created an AutoLISP file that defines commands named DisableInfoCenter and EnableInfoCenter: ...

One of my many complaints about about the CUI system introduced in AutoCAD 2006 is that it's not very friendly to third party developers. In my opinion, it's not very friendly to end users either, but I digress... One example of the unfriendly CUI is the case where a third party application installs a partial menu. In the pre-CUI days, adding a partial menu was an easy way to add an application specific menu to AutoCAD without making any changes to the end user's existing menu files. If the application was later uninstalled, the uninstall script could remove its menu and clean up the registry, leaving no trace behind. CUI breaks that scenario. ...

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.

I hit the jackpot at Radio Shack, so I’m back early from my last minute Christmas shopping today. That means I have time to tell you about the new Periscope 4.0 just released this week, in case you’re looking for a last minute stocking stuffer for that CAD geek friend of yours that already has everything. Periscope shows information about the entity beneath your AutoCAD cursor in a tooltip window (“scope window”) as you hover over an entity in AutoCAD. Periscope 3 added a COM interface that made it very easy to program a custom “extender” that added to or modified the displayed entity information. Periscope 4.0 goes even farther – it uses an excellent open source class by Eugene Pustovoyt to render simple HTML in the scope window. Custom extenders for Periscope 4.0 can now use selected HTML tags to format and beautify their output. If you’re upgrading from a previous version of Periscope and you already use a custom extender, note that you will need to make a few minor modifications to your extender code. In addition to referencing the new type library (now version 4.0), you’ll need to add a new “GSMarker” argument to your extender’s AddScopeText event handler. I’ve added a new .NET sample extender to show how easy it is to write a Periscope extender in .NET via COM interop. AutoCAD Map 3D 2008 and Topobase 2008 users, check out the commented code in the .NET sample extender to see how you can display feature data in the scope window! Happy Holidays!

The new Visual Studio 2008 has been released, and to celebrate, I’ve updated VC Build Hook. The updated utility allows you to use the new IDE while still building with older versions of the build tools. Why is this necessary? If you build your AutoCAD 2007/2008 ObjectARX application with the Visual C/C++ 9.0 tools, AutoCAD will display a warning message about an incompatible module when you try to load it. You can use VC Build Hook to target all previous AutoCAD versions from a single Visual Studio 2008 solution (if you have the correct version of Visual C/C++ installed alongside Visual Studio 2008). In my testing so far, existing Visual Studio 2005 projects build without problems in Visual Studio 2008 when VC Build Hook is installed and the new ‘BuildToolVersion’ property is set to the correct version.

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!

I’ve installed Visual Studio 2005 SP1 and have been busy testing all my projects to make sure they didn’t break. Microsoft did fix at least one of the bugs I reported (the resource editor choked on resource strings that contained an embedded NULL character), but the IDE still crashes fairly consistently if I initiate a large solution build while the Intellisense database is being rebuilt. SP1 also managed to break my VCBuildHook utility, so I’ve uploaded an updated version (2.0.3.0) for use with SP1.

Do you use AutoCAD in a sheet metal manufacturing environment? Do you perform bend allowance calculations for traditional sheet metal flat development? Take a look at Owen’s Autodesk University course on the subject (in MS Word ‘95 format): FlatDev.zip (104k). The course provides a system of generic formulas and instructions. You’ll also want to download the two associated AutoLISP functions: an AutoCAD based interactive bend allowance calculator (BCAL.LSP) and a developed blank size calculator (BDEV.LSP), both available on the Freebies page.