ActiveX/VBA Technical Newsletter - October 1999

XDSoft

ActiveX/VBA Technical Newsletter - October 1999  
This document is part of    AutoCAD VB(A) Newsletter Archive     



Dear AutoCAD ActiveX/VBA Developer,

==============================
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Table of Contents
=================
1. Introduction
2. COM Automation Presentation by Albert Szilvasy
3. Have you seen our enhanced Solution Searching capability?
4. An Example Solution
5. Some Interesting New Solutions

1. Introduction
===============

We had two Developer Conferences since the last newsletter. One in
Europe and one in Asia/Pacific. The presentation material can be found
at the following URL:

http://adn.autodesk.com/techsupp/utilitiesconferences.htm
  

2. COM Automation Presentation by Albert Szilvasy
=================================================

As an ActiveX/VBA developer you will be very interested in the
"COM Automation by Albert Szilvasy" presentation next to the
Asia/Pacific Developer Days 1999 at the following URL:

http://adn.autodesk.com/techsupp/utilitiesconferences.htm

If you haven't used VBA/ActiveX yet then this presentation is a very
convincing demonstration as to why you should learn VBA/ActiveX.
In addition to the presentation there are a number of tools, utilities
and code samples to drive the point home. If you are an experienced
developer you will see just how pervasive this technology has become
over the past few years. The great news is you can leverage your existing
knowledge to create new kinds of applications. The latest versions of the
utilities and tools developed by the Developer Consulting Group are also
available in this download.

3. Have you seen our enhanced Solution Searching capability?
============================================================

By the time you read this you should have received the ADN General Newsletter.
We have sent this newsletter to all our members because it contains new
information on how we have restructured our Solution Searching capability.
This is just too good to miss. For more details see the ADN General Newsletter.
For a sneak preview of how good this is, select the following URL:

/search/newsearch.htm

4. An Example Solution
======================

Have you visited our solutions before? If not here is an example of what one
of our many solutions looks like. This particular solution demonstrates the
following:

HOW TO EXTRACT AN XREF PATH FROM ITS BLOCK DEFINITION
/cgi-bin/solution.pl?SID=43016

Here is the text of the Solution 43016

Question:

How to obtain the path information of an Xref which is attached to a drawing
but has no references in ModelSpace/PaperSpace?

Answer

It is an unfortunate omission that the Xref path can not be obtained from the
AcadBlock object directly. This has been logged as a wishlist item. The
workaround is to create a temporary reference to the Xref to access the path
property.

Sub xrefpath()
Dim obj As Object
Dim pt(0 To 2) As Double

For Each obj In ThisDrawing.Blocks
  If obj.IsXRef Then
         'Obtain the ObjectID of the inserted block.
           objid = ThisDrawing.ModelSpace.InsertBlock(pt, obj.Name, 1, 1, 1,
0).ObjectID
         'With the help of the ObjectID get to the Object(External reference)
         'so that you can extract the path information.
           Set oRef = ThisDrawing.ObjectIdToObject(objid)
           MsgBox oRef.Path
           oRef.Delete
  End If
Next obj
End Sub

5. Some Interesting New Solutions
=================================

HOW TO EXTRACT AN XREF PATH FROM ITS BLOCK DEFINITION
/cgi-bin/solution.pl?SID=43016

FORMING A SELECTION SET OF ENTITIES ALONG WITH THEIR PICKED POINTS
/cgi-bin/solution.pl?SID=44354

ACCESSING LDATA VALUES FROM VBA
/cgi-bin/solution.pl?SID=44952
  

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