topic Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD? in .NET Forum

Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

muckmailer — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 23:59:25 GMT

SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C sharp that is portable and does not require all the installation procedures that Visual Studio does.

Can SharpDevelop IDE be configured to program AutoCAD?

I have tryed to use SharpDevelop with some of my previous CAD.net projects created with Visual Studio but I get some namespace and

cs0246 errors. I have reduce many of those error by reloading references and setting local copy to False. Now I am confronted with processor

Architectures errors.

Has anyone ever tryed to used SharpDevelop IDE to program AutoCAD.

Thank you,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

FRFR1426 — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 06:35:19 GMT

Last time I've checked there was no x64 debug support.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

FRFR1426 — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 09:26:18 GMT

There is also JetBrains Rider as an alternative to VS. But for now there is no visual designer for Winforms or XAML and you cannot define an host executable for dll projects.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

muckmailer — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 17:28:00 GMT

Does MS have some called VS code?

Is that somewhat portable?

Could that be used?

Thank you,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

BKSpurgeon — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 22:57:02 GMT

Hi there

this doesn't answer your question but may meet your needs: Visual Studio Community edition is quite powerful (much more powerful than the old express edition). add resharper into the mix and you have a powerful IDE for not much at all!

https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

it's free because microsoft wants people to code in .net as much as possible. it's the same reason why Ballamer dances up and down the stage screaming "Developers! developer! developers!"

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

kerry_w_brown — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 23:55:53 GMT

The OP ( muckmailer ) wants to use a portable IDE, so anything that relies on the local ProgramFiles folder or registry probably won't meet his needs.

VS Code and SharpDevelop meet that criteria.

I don't know about debugging for AutoCAD with VS Code.

Interestingly, I can write code to produce an assembly using any portable editor and the .NET command line compiler

... but why would I want to 🙂

Regards,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

muckmailer — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 02:05:10 GMT

A few Autocad versions ago a person could install AutoCAD and have an nice VBA IDE to work with. No additional installs was required and it gave the AutoCAD operator (ie not a developer) access to code that was a little beyond lisp. After a few versions of CAD all of this is lost. Now a person has to load and install versions of MS Visual Studio and add AutoDesk.net addons to get MS VS working with AutoCAD. On top of that it seems like a new version of CAD requires new version of VS & Autodesk addon each time a AutoCAD version changes. It seems like it is getting worse every time a new version of CAD come out.

I was looking for a simple IDE portable IDE that could be used program CAD. I think SharpDevelop has a very nice portable IDE that look like

it might work. After looking at it in detail it looks like it is a dead end for programing and debugging AutoCAD.

I still think SharpDevelop has a very nice open IDE.

Looks like I am going to have to go back to Lisp. At least all my older lisp routines still work and I can change them to when my CAD operator needs change..

Thank you,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

kerry_w_brown — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 02:16:18 GMT

Sounds to me like you're complaining about the necessity for loading the dishwasher.

Regards,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

muckmailer — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 02:35:55 GMT

At one point I thought Sharp Developer ver 5.1 might work after I reloaded my AutoCAD Reference

files because that removed bunch of errors. When I started to use debug it told me to set compiling to 32 bit. So I guess the 64 bit compiling is a problem.

Thank you,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

dgorsman — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 16:26:09 GMT

@kerry_w_brown wrote:

Sounds to me like you're complaining about the necessity for loading the dishwasher.

Regards,

Indeed. While I do agree that the middle has been hollowed out with the virtual removal of VBA (and it would be nice to have Dynamo as a replacement), I don't think there's call for an "easy button" for the level of customization provided with the dotNET API. Much like using/abusing lists with LISP, you need to work with the provided environment.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

FRFR1426 — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 17:00:49 GMT

VBA is dead. It is not cross platform. Use Javascript instead.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

muckmailer — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 23:17:25 GMT

It appears that the nice little portable IDE like CsharpDevelop 5.1 (or simular IDE) cannot be use for programming AutoCAD.

So it appears like I am stuck with loading & installing VS and AutoCAD addons.

Thank you,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

kerry_w_brown — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 23:33:55 GMT

Have a look at the VS 2017 Community Edition.

https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

You may even use it for other things beside AutoCAD and for other Languages beside C#.

//----------

What are the 'AutoCAD addons' you mention you are forced to install and load ?

Regards,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

JamesMaeding — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 00:13:29 GMT

@muckmailer

Yes, the jump to .net is kind of a big one, but you should be able to handle it.

Using .net is not hard in the end, but takes some getting used to, and is not good for in place debugging like lisp.

I use lisp and .net heavily and would never, ever use .net for controlling the acad startup.

You need to be able to debug acaddoc.lsp and other startup lisps so lisp is still alive.

The thing with .net is you can do so so much more than vba could without that much trouble.

Also, the C# help out there is amazing (don't do vb.net).

I agree with you though, LISP is king for simplicity and in place debugging.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

muckmailer — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 01:28:24 GMT

I wished I never mentioned VBA in this post. I have written programs in VB.net and C sharp using VS 2010,

Now just was looking for an portable IDE that does not require 7G to install like VS community does.

In the past I had access to a computer where I could load the express editions & install AutoCAD.net ad ons but

now I don't have that. On the computer an now I do not have the administrative control to install VS AutoCAD addons.

Make the story short that was the reason I was looking at C sharp develop IDE.

Problem I have with Lisp is that I prefer to program in C sharp or VB.net.

Thank you,

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

kerry_w_brown — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 02:57:15 GMT

muckmailer wrote:

< .. > On the computer an now I do not have the administrative control to install VS AutoCAD addons.

< .. >

Thank you,

Seems you need to have a talk to your manager / IT perp.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

dgorsman — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 17:16:23 GMT

If you are required to do use Visual Studio as part of your job, then there's a business case to be made for not only getting it installed but also having "proper" rights (anybody who develops and tests software as part of their job should have at *least* local admin rights...). If IT gets in the way that needs to be raised with the higher-ups.

If it's not part of your job, you're just doing this on your own hook and/or someone else is officially doing this, then trying to get around restrictions without any management involvement can get tricky. In larger organizations doing an end-run without permission can lead to sanctions.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

JamesMaeding — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 17:39:46 GMT

IMO, any modern powerful cad operator without admin should have a personal laptop sitting on their desktop (physical one...not windows...) to let them develop automation, and then copy to their work machine.

I did that for years at companies that wanted to run requests through their "technology committee" before letting me have them.

Between the increased production I provided, and saving that poor committee education on things they could never grasp, I figure they could have bought me the laptop.

I am not talking about H&A, my current employer. They are the opposite and get it.

Some might say the new security features of acad are there to prevent user automation from being introduced like I did.

Yet another way to prevent power users from making a company money...thanks autodesk 🙂

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

deisenbeisz — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 21:48:24 GMT

I know this is an old post, but I feel a rant is in order here. I must agree with OP on his disdain for VS and his desire for a neat and simple programming interface as AutoCAD used to provide as part of the core Autocad environment. Not all who use Autocad are programmers. In fact, the vast majority of AutoCAD users believe they have no need for .net, vba, or probably even LISP. But there are those of us who understand that automation is important to producing deliverables faster, which means happier clients and happier businesses. For us, although we might enjoy diving into some code now and then for fun, it is a matter of necessity that we automate certain aspects of our work. Unless I am way out in left field, this is where the OP is coming from on this one, and he is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT that VS (and you can pick your version) sucks. Not only is it yet another Microsoft product that usurps our computers and fills it with bloated crap, most of the time, we do not need nor do we have any use for the power that comes along with VS or even .net for that matter. We just want something simple that will allow us to manipulate drawings, automatically create and manipulate entities, and integrate MS Word/Excel documents into our schedules and tables. We don't want to power develop for Android and we sure don't need to learn an entirely new language so we can produce apps. Apps Schmapps. Most of us have already taken LISP as far as it can go, and we still use a few routines we wrote back in 1992 (speaking for myself, I suppose). The point is, we want simple, easy, and effective not powerful, fancy, and code trendy. We rarely need to do much more than loop through entities and perform some functions or bring up a file dialog box and pick a directory, but AutoDesk has made even the simplest automation task a massive headache for anyone who does not code for a living. So, the snobs who look down on VBA, or believe that AutoLISP is antiquated and should be put out to pasture, are missing the reason why VBA was a great environment for many of us. It plays very nicely with Excel and Word, it was fairly easy for non-programmers to learn, it could do just about everything we needed it to do, and it did not cost us another dime because it came with AutoCAD, Word, Excel, Access, and a lot of other applications. For us to have to re-code all of our solutions and learn yet another programming language when we never really wanted to learn one is not only inconsiderate of AutoDesk, it is enough to push me over to another CAD platform that understands the needs of its users. We don't need a new version every year, and in fact, we would prefer you just give us a bug-free version once every few years. As soon as I find a reasonable alternative that isn't an AutoDesk product for civil design, AutoCAD will be gone from my life forever. Autodesk should take notice of the silent masses whom they are alienating with their user-unfriendly policies and platform changes. There are a lot more of us than there are people who code .net for Autocad for a living. Maybe that is how they want it... Rant over.

Re: Can SharpDevelop IDE (Instead of Visual Studio) be used to program AutoCAD?

JamesMaeding — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 22:19:59 GMT

@deisenbeisz

"As soon as I find a reasonable alternative that isn't an AutoDesk product for civil design, AutoCAD will be gone from my life forever."

Hey, come work for H&A. We replaced civil3d with my (company owned) tools and dropped civil3d years ago. We are transitioning to Bricscad and all our tools work on it. When we want something fixed, I do it. Having that control is as wonderful as it sounds.

Having said that, I actually love the VS IDE. I agree its a heavy install, but its just an awesome IDE.

Adesk had talked about VSTA long ago, which is built in .net to replace built in VBA IDE. Jerry Winters thought it would happen back in like 2006. These days, you may be able to get the Bricsys folks to help get something working, but poor adesk is withering. They do not lack talent either, they lack (good) vision. It kills me because I see so many things they could do to stand out and keep customers. Oh well.