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Going back to lisp, or maybe VBA.....

5 REPLIES 5
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Message 1 of 6
Anonymous
447 Views, 5 Replies

Going back to lisp, or maybe VBA.....

So after banging my head against the desk for far too long, I've come to the
conclusion that the .NET wrappers are not up to speed, or, if they are, the
documentation on how to implement them is not.

I can, rather quickly, in VBA and Lisp get a Surface by name from the
Surfaces Collection and add a breakline to that surface. I, and the user
known as Sinc, have been unable to do either of these (based on the
documentation) in C#. Now, granted, it very well may be that we are quite
new at this C# code, but I've tried to accomplish this in many different
ways, as has Sinc. If this truly is the way of the future, why can't we get
any REAL examples or Help files? Why do posts here go unanswered by the
folks at Adesk? (Peter said he'd post an example or two on how to code for
C3D over at the CE Community, so far I haven't seen anything.)

Just looking for some guidance or a nudge in the right direction.
5 REPLIES 5
Message 2 of 6
Sinc
in reply to: Anonymous

Heh, just read this after posting similar sentiments in one of the other threads...

Hey, Autodesk! What's up with the C3D API? We keep hearing that Autodesk wants us to drop the Lisp and VBA customizations, but if that's the case, why is the .NET API so bad?
Sinc
Message 3 of 6
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Judging by the little I've been able to do, I don't doubt that .NET is the
better approach. I'm loving what I'm seeing so far.

BUT: I agree completely with you on the documentation/samples.......YUK! I
had sent a comment in and got a response from someone at Adesk who seemed to
be saying that they agree and are working on it, so hopefully soon there
will be big improvements.

Quick example: Why is the color property in a surfaceanalysis
elevationregion an integer? TrueColors work......I have no idea
how.....documentation would be greeeeat.

"Jeff Mishler" wrote in message
news:5515982@discussion.autodesk.com...
So after banging my head against the desk for far too long, I've come to the
conclusion that the .NET wrappers are not up to speed, or, if they are, the
documentation on how to implement them is not.
Message 4 of 6
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

And now that I'm finding out that I can no longer compile a program for 2007
just because I also have 2008 installed, it's starting to look like lisp &
vba are the only ways I can continue coding for multiple versions. I had
thought the the .NET framework was supposed to HELP in this regard. But,
thanks to Adesk throwing a bunch of version dependent files into the
Autodesk_Shared folder, working with code for a previous version is nearly
impossible. Sure, I can still use it in 2007, but anyone else who has JUST
2007 is not able to run it, as it gets compiled with the 2008 libraries
(nope, can't even reference the older ones). Just plain dumb.....IMHO.

So it's looking like I've wasted a geat deal of time moving to the .NET
format. While it looked promising, this version specific crappola is for the
birds.

Now if anyone would care to share how I'm completely misguided, I'm still
willing to listen......

On a separate, but related, note:
Why do the docs, Intellisense, VBA & VB.NET all say/suggest/use some
properties, but C# does not? I've asked about this previously but only today
found a workaround (thanks Sinc). Specifically, get a Point object, Find the
PointGroup(s) it belongs to, attempt to get the PointStyle used by one of
the groups.
You would think (and can do in VB.NET) that this would work:
string strName = oPointGroup.Pointstyle.Name;

But nope, all you get is a Build error.
In order to access the PointStyle, one must use this format:
string strName = oPointGroup.get_Pointstyle().Name;
which is not Intellisense friendly, nor is it covered in the docs.

I would really like to use this C#.NET more, but things like this just work
to push me away.

Thanks,
Jeff

"Jeff Mishler" wrote in message
news:5515982@discussion.autodesk.com...
So after banging my head against the desk for far too long, I've come to the
conclusion that the .NET wrappers are not up to speed, or, if they are, the
documentation on how to implement them is not.
Message 5 of 6
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

I appreciate your comments on this, Jeff. You may have saved me some
(many?) wasted hours in the near future.

"Jeff Mishler" wrote in message
news:5579390@discussion.autodesk.com...

So it's looking like I've wasted a geat deal of time moving to the .NET
format. While it looked promising, this version specific crappola is for the
birds.
Message 6 of 6
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Hi Jeff,

I won't get into all the specifics of my application or all that it does, but I will say that it's using VLAX exclusively for all of it's functions. It's able to access alignments, surfaces and preferences (All we really want from Autodesk civil app's) just fine and is very stable. For example our app' can generate a complex 3D Road Model through 1000 feet of a road, update all the attached pads, update all paving labels (Curbs or percent grades) build or update a corridor surface, generate or re-generate contours and calculate or update earthworks volumes for that alignment and keep a cumulative running total for the site using grid, composite or average methods in a few seconds.

My co-developer and I considered stopping development with VLAX and jsut focusing on C#.net, but we came to realize that the version limitations would hurt our app's flexibility. This does NOT mean that we're not going to continue learning C#.net, because, yes it is the way of the future and has lots more power than VLAX, however this isn't the future yet and you'd be amazed at how many companies are still using old software.

Right now we can do everything I mentioned above with a single version of our app' that's compatible with all version of Autodesk civil app's from LDD R1/ Civil 3D 2005 through LDD/C3D 2007. It's nice not to have to tell clients with a certain version of Autodesk software that they have to upgrade to use our app'.

People talk a lot of trash about VLAX, but the truth is it's a powerful, capable and flexible language when used by those who know how to apply it efficiently. I know you're also one of those people. Good luck.

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