LISP to send out drawings.

[irishrandy26]

I am looking to create a lisp to help speed up the process of sending out drawings to clients.

I work for an Engineering Firm and some time we need to send out .dwg's to clients but we don't like to send out any blocks, we detach one xref and bind the rest. Audit and Purge and send out. I would like the command to start by typing "send" and then just complete.

Some information you may need;

The name of the xref's that we need to detach are as follows: 

BTR Small Seal

BTR Sig

All other xrefs we will bind.

We will then Burst everything in the drawing (4 times).

Then Explode everything (2 times)

Then Audit, and type "yes" to fix all errors,

Then I need to "Purge ALL".

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

If you need to know file structure for any reason please let me know!

Also the two xrefs that I need to be detached are embeded inside the border and the name of the border changes per job, but will look something like this "14200.00BDR.dwg" - Others could look like this "14200.01BDR.dwg". This may have to be done manually but I am hoping to incorporate this in the lisp so all you have to do is open the drawing type "SEND" and then "Save As" and attach to email.

Thank you for your time.

[3wood]

You can compile most steps in a script file, or a lisp file.

But the core function will be the burst/explode process. You can try using function (explodeall (ssget "x" '((2 . "~14200.??BDR"))))in attached EXPLODEALL.vlx file.

The xrefs blocks with name pattern 14200.??BDR are excluded from the selection set passed to explodeall function.

Refer to https://sites.google.com/site/cadkits/home/explodeall for detailed usages.

Other commands such as AUDIT and PURGE are quite easy to put in a script file.

But I don't know how to put SENDMAIL command in the script file. It looks this command doesn't have a command line form and can only be used from the pulldown menu? 

[irishrandy26]

I don't mind having to send the e-mail myself. I guess I just added that text to better explain what I was doing so there was less confusion.

How do I read vlx files? Or modify them if need be?

And I was kind of hoping someone could help me set the entire command up. In other words walk me through it a bit...

I will start the command and post it here shortly.

[hwalker]

Have you looked into using ETRANSMIT. It creates a zip file which you can send to the client, BUT you can choose which files to send.

[3wood]

You can save following code as a .scr file and run it in AutoCAD with SCRIPT command.

(explodeall (ssget "x" '((2 . "~14200.??BDR"))))
AUDIT YES
-PURGE ALL * NO

You need save a dwg copy first then run the script file because it is unable to UNDO to original.

You cannot read or modify vlx file. You can load it into AutoCAD in Startup Suite with APPLOAD command so it will be loaded into every drawing.

[jggerth1]

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@irishrandy26 wrote:

...

All other xrefs we will bind.

We will then Burst everything in the drawing (4 times).

Then Explode everything (2 times)

Then Audit, and type "yes" to fix all errors,

Then I need to "Purge ALL".

 ...

---

When you send a dwg that's gone through that process to a client/sub/prime - do you ever get any repeat business from them?  That seems an incredibly hostile attitude towards collaborating with a design team.

[irishrandy26]

Yes I have looked into the ETRANSMIT but I want to make sure I am not giving away any of our blocks. Layers are fine and now that I think about it I probably dont need to Explode at all... I more just need to bind xref's and burst for two reasons, to make sure they have all information and to make sure that I am giving them the smallest file I can produce.

[irishrandy26]

So I type "EXPLODEALL" to start the command?

[m_rogoff]

There are several options you can set in the Etrans setup to purge and bind. See attached pic.

In macro form, this is what you are looking for.   ^C^Cbindtype;1;-xref;bind;*;burst;all;;-purge;a;;n;-purge;r;;n;audit;y;