Mastering AutoCAD VBA

Mastering ™ AutoCAD ® VBA San Francisco • Paris • Düsseldorf • Soest • London Marion Cottingham 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page v 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page iv Mastering AutoCAD VBA 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page iii 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page iv Mastering ™ AutoCAD ® VBA San Francisco • Paris • Düsseldorf • Soest • London Marion Cottingham 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page v Associate Publisher: Cheryl Applewood Contracts and Licensing Manager: Kristine O’Callaghan Acquisitions and Developmental Editor: Raquel Baker Editor: Carol Henry Production Editor: Nathan Whiteside Technical Editor: Steve Hansen Book Designer: Franz Baumhackl Electronic Publishing Specialist: Jill Niles Proofreaders: Nancy Riddiough, Nanette Duffy, Laurie O’Connell, Emily Hsuan Indexer: Ted Laux CD Coordinator: Erica Yee CD Technician: Kevin Ly Cover Designer: Design Site Cover Illustrator: Sergei Loobkoff, Design Site Copyright © 2001 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. 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ADVANTAGES OF USING VBA WITH AUTOCAD Advantages of Using VBA with AutoCAD Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a programming environment created by Microsoft that is built into applications to automate operations It provides tools that you can drag and drop to build a graphical user interface (GUI), and a programming language that you can use to interact with AutoCAD objects Using VBA with AutoCAD allows... VBA and have already written some successful VBA code, you may want to skip this chapter—or even just skim over the entire Part I, depending on your experience The material covered in Chapter 4, VBA Programming Concepts,” will always be useful to you as a reference This chapter covers the following topics: • Advantages of using VBA with AutoCAD • The AutoCAD VBA environment • Developing your first application... Contents Introduction xxiii Part 1 • VBA Macros and the Visual Basic Editor 1 Chapter 1 • Developing a Simple VBA Application 3 Advantages of Using VBA with AutoCAD 5 The AutoCAD VBA Environment 6 Creating UserForm Modules ... standalone application, except that it can only be opened from the AutoCAD window and does not remain open after AutoCAD has been closed The term VBA Editor is often used synonymously with the IDE even though the IDE provides more than just editing features The VBA IDE can be opened from the AutoCAD window in a variety of ways: • Type vbaide next to the command prompt in the command line • Choose Tools... Page 1 Part 1 VBA Macros and the Visual Basic Editor In This Part Chapter 1: Developing a Simple VBA Application 3 Chapter 2: Creating VBA Macros 29 Chapter 3: Quick Tour of the IDE 53 Chapter 4: VBA Programming Concepts 79 2871c01.qxd 3/19/01 9:20 AM Page 2 2871c01.qxd 3/19/01 9:20 AM Page 3 Developing a Simple VBA Application... 567 Using AutoCAD with Other Applications 567 Dragging Objects into AutoCAD 567 Using ActiveX Controls in Macros 569 Exchange between AutoCAD and Excel 569 Saving Line Data to an Excel Spreadsheet 570 Drawing an AutoCAD Line from Excel 573 Exchange between AutoCAD and Word... 2871Frontmatter.qxd xxiv 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page xxiv INTRODUCTION 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... complex such as AutoCAD itself Another not-so-obvious advantage of learning AutoCAD VBA is that your skills are transferable to a growing number of other applications that have VBA capability These applications include all those in the Microsoft Office family of applications, such as Access, Word, and Excel, in addition to Microsoft Visual Basic itself and about two hundred other licensees VBA interfaces... successfully developed VBA code that works in the ways you want it to, it’s guaranteed to perform correctly and reliably each time you run it Now there’s an incentive to learn VBA! So let’s begin by examining the interface where you will write your code—the Visual Basic Editor The AutoCAD VBA Environment The Visual Basic Editor is the integrated environment in which you develop all your VBA code As you can... 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 . 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page iv Mastering AutoCAD VBA 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page iii 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page iv Mastering ™ AutoCAD ® VBA San Francisco • Paris • Düsseldorf. Mastering ™ AutoCAD ® VBA San Francisco • Paris • Düsseldorf • Soest • London Marion Cottingham 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page v 2871Frontmatter.qxd 3/30/01 8:42 AM Page iv Mastering AutoCAD VBA 2871Frontmatter.qxd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Advantages of Using VBA with AutoCAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The AutoCAD VBA Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .