Part VII. Programming AutoCAD

IN THIS PART

Part VII invites you to go the distance and start programming AutoCAD with AutoLISP, Visual LISP, and Microsoft Visual Basic (VB.NET). AutoLISP is a powerful programming language that lets you quickly create your own commands and routines that are tailored to your needs. Visual LISP adds an easy-to-use interface to AutoLISP programming.

.NET is a framework you can use with many programming languages, such as VB.NET and C#, to develop stand-alone (EXE) applications and add-ins for AutoCAD. You can create custom commands and AutoLISP functions for AutoCAD. One of the programming languages that can be used with the .NET Framework is Microsoft Visual Basic (VB.NET), which supports both ActiveX/COM and .NET application programming interfaces (APIs). Many Windows applications support the use of ActiveX/COM to allow communication with other applications. For example, you can create a macro in Microsoft Excel that can manipulate objects in an AutoCAD drawing file. Due to page overruns, this chapter is on the DVD.

Unfortunately, AutoCAD LT doesn't support either AutoLISP or .NET development. Therefore, this entire part applies only to AutoCAD.

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