topic Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net? in .NET Forum

Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 17:51:09 GMT

I do tons of grdraw type stuff with lisp.
I am looking at if the .net API will allow me to draw temprary vectors like grdraw did.

I am guessing this has been answered before but did not find it in this group.

In addition, teach me to fish.
How should I have investigated this on my own?
I am a pretty good VB6 writer, and learning VB.net and how the frameworks "work" for any language.

But this would be a great case study I could learn from.

Shoul I be looking at some help file showing an object model for the .net acad API?
I downloaded the objectarx sdk help files, not sure if that applies to using VB.net though.

or should I have visual studio.net installed and reference the right dll's (or frameworks...) and look in the object
browser there?

how do real programmers walk through the .net API for acad to see whats in it?
feel free to redirect me to other threads, this has to have been talked about before...

Thanks in advance.

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 23:13:00 GMT

Hi James,

There was a similar post where no one could suggest a .NET API equivalent of GRDRAW or GRVECS. http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=420998

If there is no equivalent I have an example of using GRVECS in VBA which you may be able to use this approach with VB.NET. http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3955682

Regards - Nathan

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 00:29:43 GMT

cool, I have been looking for that code for a while.
I need that for VB6.

I installed .net finally, and opened the hello world sample that was in the objectarx SDK.

I opened the object browser and looked at the acdbg or whatever libraries and found the jig method.
I have a feeling calling the activex grvecs will be too slow for things that draw a lot of temp vectors.

Surely this is not something only lisp can do! I would think some sharp C programmer could tell me how to do grvecs and
more with .net - or maybe the .net API is not fully baked...

James Maeding
|>I do tons of grdraw type stuff with lisp.
|>I am looking at if the .net API will allow me to draw temprary vectors like grdraw did.
|>
|>I am guessing this has been answered before but did not find it in this group.
|>
|>In addition, teach me to fish.
|>How should I have investigated this on my own?
|>I am a pretty good VB6 writer, and learning VB.net and how the frameworks "work" for any language.
|>
|>But this would be a great case study I could learn from.
|>
|>Shoul I be looking at some help file showing an object model for the .net acad API?
|>I downloaded the objectarx sdk help files, not sure if that applies to using VB.net though.
|>
|>or should I have visual studio.net installed and reference the right dll's (or frameworks...) and look in the object
|>browser there?
|>
|>how do real programmers walk through the .net API for acad to see whats in it?
|>feel free to redirect me to other threads, this has to have been talked about before...
|>
|>Thanks in advance.
|>
|>James Maeding
|>Civil Engineer and Programmer
|>jmaeding - athunsaker - com

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 07:47:47 GMT

James,

I had similar problem since 2006 is
currently not an option for me. In 2005 there is no managed AcEdJig class, so I
had to use P/Invoke interop to call C++ APIs directly. Here is a
function definition (VB.NET) - it does exactly what GRDRAW does in
Lisp:

<DllImport("acad.exe",
EntryPoint:="acedGrDraw", CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.Cdecl)>
_

Public
color=#0000ff>Shared Function acedGrDraw(
color=#0000ff>ByVal fromPoint As
color=#0000ff>Double(), ByVal toPoint
color=#0000ff>As Double(),
color=#0000ff>ByVal color As
color=#0000ff>Integer, ByVal hl
color=#0000ff>As Integer)
color=#0000ff>As Integer

color=#0000ff>End
color=#0000ff>Function

Note: fromPoint and toPoint are
three-element arrays of doubles. For color and hl (Highlight) value
definitions browse through the ObjectARX documentation. Furthermore,
you can implement Point3D class and enumerators for fromPoint, toPoint,
color and hl parameters.

Regards,

Maksim Sestic

"James Maeding" <jmaeding...hunsaker...com>
wrote in message
face=Verdana size=2>news:4953556@discussion.autodesk.com
face=Verdana size=2>...

I do tons of
grdraw type stuff with lisp.
I am looking at if the .net API will allow me to
draw temprary vectors like grdraw did.

I am guessing this has been
answered before but did not find it in this group.

In addition, teach me
to fish.
How should I have investigated this on my own?
I am a pretty good
VB6 writer, and learning VB.net and how the frameworks "work" for any
language.

But this would be a great case study I could learn
from.

Shoul I be looking at some help file showing an object model for
the .net acad API?
I downloaded the objectarx sdk help files, not sure if
that applies to using VB.net though.

or should I have visual studio.net
installed and reference the right dll's (or frameworks...) and look in the
object
browser there?

how do real programmers walk through the .net
API for acad to see whats in it?
feel free to redirect me to other threads,
this has to have been talked about before...

Thanks in
advance.

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding -
athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 15:27:34 GMT

oh wow, now we are talking!
This is huge because this was the main thing preventing me from spending time learning .net.
Thank you so much! I am sure others out there are drooling at this.

Now I just need to learn how all this .net stuff works. Its really diffferent than VB6 activex programming.

Maksim Sestic

James,

I had similar problem since 2006 is currently not an option for me. In 2005 there is no managed AcEdJig class, so I had
to use P/Invoke interop to call C++ APIs directly. Here is a function definition (VB.NET) - it does exactly what GRDRAW
does in Lisp:

_

Public Shared Function acedGrDraw(ByVal fromPoint As Double(), ByVal toPoint As Double(), ByVal color As Integer, ByVal
hl As Integer) As Integer

End Function

Note: fromPoint and toPoint are three-element arrays of doubles. For color and hl (Highlight) value definitions browse
through the ObjectARX documentation. Furthermore, you can implement Point3D class and enumerators for fromPoint,
toPoint, color and hl parameters.

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 06:56:41 GMT

Being a
VB6 developer myself, I can tell that .NET programming concepts are
getting much deeper than that 🙂 Frankly, I didn't care much about programming
languages since I was working on my own, and my code did what it was
supposed to do. As soon as I gathered team of guys working on the same project
I stumbled into a problem also known as "DLL Hell" (
href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DLL+Hell">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DLL+Hell).
DotNET was the only viable solution apart from all of us learning the same
programming language.

A word or two on .NET concepts... You
will have to revise A LOT of what you currently know about programming
techniques 🙂 Language syntax itself is the easiest part. Some people
say that it's "real OOP", my conclusion was that now it takes much more time to
plan and considerably less time to code. Plain and simple. Take a look at
the following links on VB.NET programming, it might give you a hint where to
start from:

- The Code Project (
href="http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/">http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/)

- vbCity/DevCity.NET Forums (
href="http://www.vbcity.com/forums/faq.asp?fid=15">http://www.vbcity.com/forums/faq.asp?fid=15)

- VB.NET Heaven (
href="http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/">http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/)

- DevX VB.NET Articles (
href="http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Door/10587">http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Door/10587)

- Xtreme VB Talk (
href="http://www.xtremevbtalk.com">http://www.xtremevbtalk.com)

- DeveloperFusion (
href="http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/vbnet/">http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/vbnet/)

- Microsoft VB Developer Center (
href="http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/">http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/)

Regards,

Maksim Sestic

"James Maeding" <jmaeding...hunsaker...com>
wrote in message
face=Verdana size=2>news:4954606@discussion.autodesk.com
face=Verdana size=2>...

oh wow, now we are
talking!
This is huge because this was the main thing preventing me from
spending time learning .net.
Thank you so much! I am sure others out there
are drooling at this.

Now I just need to learn how all this .net stuff
works. Its really diffferent than VB6 activex
programming.

Maksim Sestic <
href="mailto:info@geoinova.com">
size=2>info@geoinova.com
size=2>>

James,

I had similar problem since 2006 is
currently not an option for me. In 2005 there is no managed AcEdJig class, so I
had
to use P/Invoke interop to call C++ APIs directly. Here is a function
definition (VB.NET) - it does exactly what GRDRAW
does in
Lisp:

<DllImport("acad.exe", EntryPoint:="acedGrDraw",
CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.Cdecl)> _

Public Shared Function
acedGrDraw(ByVal fromPoint As Double(), ByVal toPoint As Double(), ByVal color
As Integer, ByVal
hl As Integer) As Integer

End Function

Note:
fromPoint and toPoint are three-element arrays of doubles. For color and hl
(Highlight) value definitions browse
through the ObjectARX documentation.
Furthermore, you can implement Point3D class and enumerators for
fromPoint,
toPoint, color and hl parameters.

Regards,
Maksim
Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding -
athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 16:09:21 GMT

Thanks for the comments, those are good links. I know what you mean about the dll hell. Dan Appleman did a good book
on the differences between vb6 and .net, and the wrox vb.net book is good too.

Can you explin a little what you mean by it taking more time to plan.
Do you mean if you have a team on a project and need to plan how things get split up, or do you mean there are lots of
ways of using the various frameworks, and I need to choose carefully?
any help appreciated.

Also, can that dll import trick be done to work with vb6? I have progs in VB6 I would like to add that grdraw
capability to.
thx

Being a VB6 developer myself, I can tell that .NET programming concepts are getting much deeper than that 🙂 Frankly, I
didn't care much about programming languages since I was working on my own, and my code did what it was supposed to do.
As soon as I gathered team of guys working on the same project I stumbled into a problem also known as "DLL Hell"
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DLL+Hell). DotNET was the only viable solution apart from all of us learning the
same programming language.

A word or two on .NET concepts... You will have to revise A LOT of what you currently know about programming techniques
:-) Language syntax itself is the easiest part. Some people say that it's "real OOP", my conclusion was that now it
takes much more time to plan and considerably less time to code. Plain and simple. Take a look at the following links on
VB.NET programming, it might give you a hint where to start from:

- The Code Project (http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/)
- vbCity/DevCity.NET Forums (http://www.vbcity.com/forums/faq.asp?fid=15)
- VB.NET Heaven (http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/)
- DevX VB.NET Articles (http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Door/10587)
- Xtreme VB Talk (http://www.xtremevbtalk.com)
- DeveloperFusion (http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/vbnet/)
- Microsoft VB Developer Center (http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/)

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 07:02:00 GMT

James,

The very same thing should work in VB6 too. By "planning" I actually ment
planning within the scope of new functionalities offered by Framework
itself. I don't say in VB6 you don't need to plan certain approach, I just
say that it pays back triple in .NET 🙂

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

"James Maeding" wrote in message
news:4956162@discussion.autodesk.com...
Thanks for the comments, those are good links. I know what you mean about
the dll hell. Dan Appleman did a good book
on the differences between vb6 and .net, and the wrox vb.net book is good
too.

Can you explin a little what you mean by it taking more time to plan.
Do you mean if you have a team on a project and need to plan how things get
split up, or do you mean there are lots of
ways of using the various frameworks, and I need to choose carefully?
any help appreciated.

Also, can that dll import trick be done to work with vb6? I have progs in
VB6 I would like to add that grdraw
capability to.
thx

Being a VB6 developer myself, I can tell that .NET programming concepts are
getting much deeper than that 🙂 Frankly, I
didn't care much about programming languages since I was working on my own,
and my code did what it was supposed to do.
As soon as I gathered team of guys working on the same project I stumbled
into a problem also known as "DLL Hell"
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DLL+Hell). DotNET was the only viable
solution apart from all of us learning the
same programming language.

A word or two on .NET concepts... You will have to revise A LOT of what you
currently know about programming techniques
:-) Language syntax itself is the easiest part. Some people say that it's
"real OOP", my conclusion was that now it
takes much more time to plan and considerably less time to code. Plain and
simple. Take a look at the following links on
VB.NET programming, it might give you a hint where to start from:

- The Code Project (http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/)
- vbCity/DevCity.NET Forums (http://www.vbcity.com/forums/faq.asp?fid=15)
- VB.NET Heaven (http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/)
- DevX VB.NET Articles (http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Door/10587)
- Xtreme VB Talk (http://www.xtremevbtalk.com)
- DeveloperFusion (http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/vbnet/)
- Microsoft VB Developer Center (http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/)

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:48:28 GMT

No unfurtunately the same thing won't work in VB6. VB6 can only do stdcall
calling convention and this function is exported from autocad using the
cdecl calling convention.

Albert

"Maksim Sestic" wrote in message
news:4956942@discussion.autodesk.com...
James,

The very same thing should work in VB6 too. By "planning" I actually ment
planning within the scope of new functionalities offered by Framework
itself. I don't say in VB6 you don't need to plan certain approach, I just
say that it pays back triple in .NET 🙂

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

"James Maeding" wrote in message
news:4956162@discussion.autodesk.com...
Thanks for the comments, those are good links. I know what you mean about
the dll hell. Dan Appleman did a good book
on the differences between vb6 and .net, and the wrox vb.net book is good
too.

Can you explin a little what you mean by it taking more time to plan.
Do you mean if you have a team on a project and need to plan how things get
split up, or do you mean there are lots of
ways of using the various frameworks, and I need to choose carefully?
any help appreciated.

Also, can that dll import trick be done to work with vb6? I have progs in
VB6 I would like to add that grdraw
capability to.
thx

Being a VB6 developer myself, I can tell that .NET programming concepts are
getting much deeper than that 🙂 Frankly, I
didn't care much about programming languages since I was working on my own,
and my code did what it was supposed to do.
As soon as I gathered team of guys working on the same project I stumbled
into a problem also known as "DLL Hell"
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DLL+Hell). DotNET was the only viable
solution apart from all of us learning the
same programming language.

A word or two on .NET concepts... You will have to revise A LOT of what you
currently know about programming techniques
:-) Language syntax itself is the easiest part. Some people say that it's
"real OOP", my conclusion was that now it
takes much more time to plan and considerably less time to code. Plain and
simple. Take a look at the following links on
VB.NET programming, it might give you a hint where to start from:

- The Code Project (http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/)
- vbCity/DevCity.NET Forums (http://www.vbcity.com/forums/faq.asp?fid=15)
- VB.NET Heaven (http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/)
- DevX VB.NET Articles (http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Door/10587)
- Xtreme VB Talk (http://www.xtremevbtalk.com)
- DeveloperFusion (http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/vbnet/)
- Microsoft VB Developer Center (http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/)

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 10:11:59 GMT

Albert, you're right. I figured it out while
trying to reproduce that API call from VB6... James, I guess you can still write
acedGrDraw function (as explained) in VB.NET, exposing it to VB6 via COM
Interop.

Useful links on exposing COM Interfaces of .NET
classes:

-
href="http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/MusaExposingCOM.asp">http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/MusaExposingCOM.asp (VB.NET,
early and late binding)

-
href="http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/COM_DOTNET_INTEROP.asp">http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/COM_DOTNET_INTEROP.asp (COM
Interop, explained)

-
href="http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/cominterop.asp">http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/cominterop.asp (C#,
see Part II)

-
href="http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/CSComTemplate.asp">http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/CSComTemplate.asp (COM
Class wizard in C#)

Regards,

Maksim Sestic

size=2>

"Albert Szilvasy" <
href="mailto:not_provided@autodesk.com">
size=2>not_provided@autodesk.com> wrote
in message
face=Verdana size=2>news:4959373@discussion.autodesk.com
face=Verdana size=2>...

No unfurtunately
the same thing won't work in VB6. VB6 can only do stdcall
calling convention
and this function is exported from autocad using the
cdecl calling
convention.

Albert

"Maksim Sestic" <
href="mailto:info@geoinova.com">
size=2>info@geoinova.com> wrote in
message

face=Verdana size=2>news:4956942@discussion.autodesk.com
face=Verdana size=2>...
James,

The very same thing should work in VB6
too. By "planning" I actually ment
planning within the scope of new
functionalities offered by Framework
itself. I don't say in VB6 you don't
need to plan certain approach, I just
say that it pays back triple in .NET
:-)

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

"James Maeding"
<jmaeding...hunsaker...com> wrote in message

href="news:4956162@discussion.autodesk.com">
size=2>news:4956162@discussion.autodesk.com
size=2>...
Thanks for the comments, those are good links. I know what
you mean about
the dll hell. Dan Appleman did a good book
on the
differences between vb6 and .net, and the wrox vb.net book is
good
too.

Can you explin a little what you mean by it taking more time
to plan.
Do you mean if you have a team on a project and need to plan how
things get
split up, or do you mean there are lots of
ways of using the
various frameworks, and I need to choose carefully?
any help
appreciated.

Also, can that dll import trick be done to work with
vb6? I have progs in
VB6 I would like to add that grdraw
capability
to.
thx

Being a VB6 developer myself, I can tell that .NET
programming concepts are
getting much deeper than that 🙂 Frankly,
I
didn't care much about programming languages since I was working on my
own,
and my code did what it was supposed to do.
As soon as I gathered
team of guys working on the same project I stumbled
into a problem also known
as "DLL Hell"
(
href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DLL+Hell">
size=2>http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DLL+Hell
face=Verdana size=2>). DotNET was the only viable
solution apart from all of
us learning the
same programming language.

A word or two on .NET
concepts... You will have to revise A LOT of what you
currently know about
programming techniques
🙂 Language syntax itself is the easiest part. Some
people say that it's
"real OOP", my conclusion was that now it
takes much
more time to plan and considerably less time to code. Plain and
simple. Take
a look at the following links on
VB.NET programming, it might give you a hint
where to start from:

- The Code Project (
href="http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/">
size=2>http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/
size=2>)
- vbCity/DevCity.NET Forums (
href="http://www.vbcity.com/forums/faq.asp?fid=15">
size=2>http://www.vbcity.com/forums/faq.asp?fid=15
size=2>)
- VB.NET Heaven (
href="http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/">
size=2>http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/)
-
DevX VB.NET Articles (
href="http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Door/10587">
size=2>http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Door/10587
size=2>)
- Xtreme VB Talk (
face=Verdana size=2>http://www.xtremevbtalk.com
size=2>)
- DeveloperFusion (
href="http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/vbnet/">
size=2>http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/vbnet/
size=2>)
- Microsoft VB Developer Center (
href="http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/">
size=2>http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/
size=2>)

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer
and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:03:34 GMT

Hi Albert, do you know if it will be in the .NET API in a future release?

Regards - Nathan

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 04:55:11 GMT

Wow, this gets deep fast. I am starting to see how different .net is.
I looked at the helloworld prog in the objectarx sdk download and how it uses the transaction manager to do things.
It looks like I am doing objectarx programming in visual basic.
I am ok with learning but this is such a twist. Now the divide between programming in lisp and VB (vb.net) is huge.
I can teach someone lisp writing pretty fast, but you have to know a whole lot and be practiced at vb.net to write
vb.net progs for acad.

Am I the only one who thinks vb.net learning curve is way beyond the time availablity of most cad managers?

Its like you become a very well educated programmer, or your complicated projects written in VB6 become incompatible
with acad some time soon.
Is my read on all this wrong?

Albert, you're right. I figured it out while trying to reproduce that API call from VB6... James, I guess you can still
write acedGrDraw function (as explained) in VB.NET, exposing it to VB6 via COM Interop.

Useful links on exposing COM Interfaces of .NET classes:

- http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/MusaExposingCOM.asp (VB.NET, early and late binding)
- http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/COM_DOTNET_INTEROP.asp (COM Interop, explained)
- http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/cominterop.asp (C#, see Part II)
- http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/CSComTemplate.asp (COM Class wizard in C#)

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 05:47:30 GMT

"James Maeding" wrote :

....

>> Am I the only one who thinks vb.net learning curve
>> is way beyond the time availablity of most cad managers?

...

>> James Maeding
>> Civil Engineer and Programmer
>> jmaeding - athunsaker - com

You SIG doesn't say 'cad manager'.

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 15:44:07 GMT

But that is what I do, I am a full time support person.
I did civil design for 10 years and learned programming along the way, as well as troubleshooting and organizing
projects, like most cad managers.
The difference is I like programming a lot while many cad managers just settle for what others can produce.
You can see that I am not a computer science major though.

Jsut out of curiousity Tony, how did you get into the acad side of programming and what makes up your bread and butter
these days?

My biggest programming effort is the in house civil design prog we use. My day to day is helping project teams get past
hurdles. this inclused everything from interviewing new hires to fixing broken drawings. I like it.

Tony Tanzillo
|>"James Maeding" wrote :
|>
|>....
|>
|>>> Am I the only one who thinks vb.net learning curve
|>>> is way beyond the time availablity of most cad managers?
|>
|>...
|>
|>>> James Maeding
|>>> Civil Engineer and Programmer
|>>> jmaeding - athunsaker - com
|>
|>You SIG doesn't say 'cad manager'.

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:53:06 GMT

I can't disclose anything about future releases.
Sorry,
albert
wrote in message news:4959802@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Albert, do you know if it will be in the .NET API in a future release?

Regards - Nathan

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:54:47 GMT

Hold it. Don't confuse the API and the language.
You can use VB.NET to program against the COM API just like you did with
VB6.
You can also use VB.NET to program against the .NET API.
In fact you can mix the 2 APIs in the same project or function.

albert

"James Maeding" wrote in message
news:4959900@discussion.autodesk.com...
Wow, this gets deep fast. I am starting to see how different .net is.
I looked at the helloworld prog in the objectarx sdk download and how it
uses the transaction manager to do things.
It looks like I am doing objectarx programming in visual basic.
I am ok with learning but this is such a twist. Now the divide between
programming in lisp and VB (vb.net) is huge.
I can teach someone lisp writing pretty fast, but you have to know a whole
lot and be practiced at vb.net to write
vb.net progs for acad.

Am I the only one who thinks vb.net learning curve is way beyond the time
availablity of most cad managers?

Its like you become a very well educated programmer, or your complicated
projects written in VB6 become incompatible
with acad some time soon.
Is my read on all this wrong?

Albert, you're right. I figured it out while trying to reproduce that API
call from VB6... James, I guess you can still
write acedGrDraw function (as explained) in VB.NET, exposing it to VB6 via
COM Interop.

Useful links on exposing COM Interfaces of .NET classes:

- http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/MusaExposingCOM.asp (VB.NET, early and
late binding)
- http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/COM_DOTNET_INTEROP.asp (COM Interop,
explained)
- http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/cominterop.asp (C#, see Part II)
- http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/CSComTemplate.asp (COM Class wizard in
C#)

Regards,
Maksim Sestic

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 04:33:30 GMT

No worries.

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 17:07:21 GMT

well, I would stick with VB6 if I wanted to do progs that just used com.
I understand that you can do both com and .net api with .net.

I have found I can write much slicker apps with lisp and objectdcl than with VB6/VBA and com.
This is because lisp is hooked up better with the acad command line than com is.

For instance,
Can you write a function with com that asks the user to pick an entity or type a number?
This is important for routines that need an elevation to do something, and the user might have some text already drawn
with that elevation in it.

I could not do this with com but am hoping the .net api will give more control of user input...
the GRDraw is another thing that handicapped com, until now...
thx

Albert Szilvasy
|>Hold it. Don't confuse the API and the language.
|>You can use VB.NET to program against the COM API just like you did with
|>VB6.
|>You can also use VB.NET to program against the .NET API.
|>In fact you can mix the 2 APIs in the same project or function.
|>
|>albert
|>

James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 06:21:51 GMT

Can you write a function with com that asks the
user to pick an entity or type a number?

Yes, you can. .NET might give
you a slightly more power to control user input than existing COM interface. On
the other hand, .NET will surely help you develop more integrated and more
complex applications, without fear of DLL incompatibility, etc.

Re: Can GRDRAW be done with VB.net?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:04:53 GMT

"James Maeding" wrote

>> For instance, Can you write a function with com
>> that asks the user to pick an entity or type a number?

Well, you must not know very much about COM if you
ask a question like that.

Of course you can do that with COM.

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