Autolisp: how embed or to load a lisp routine in a drawing

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon,

can i load a lisp code automatically when a certain drawing is opened? Not sure if lisp can be embedded in a specific drawing or if i have to load it at Autocad startup for all of my drawings.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Just to make sure i explained right, i have a lisp code that i only want to load when a specific drawing is opened. At the moment i have it in the startup suite so it's loaded when Autocad starts so it is available for all my drawings.

[AllenJessup]

The only way I can think of doing it for an individual drawing would be to write a batch file that opens that particular drawing and then loads the lisp file. Possibly through a script.

[AllenJessup]

OK. Another possibility is through the use of ICON SWITCHES. You could create an Icon that opens a particular drawing and calls a script to load the lisp.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your replies Allen.

Ii was hoping i could "embed" the lisp routing in the file because i have to place it on our shared drive and needed anyone that open my drawing to have the routine available instead of having to make it available and having to ask everyone to load the lisp code when the use the drawing.

[AllenJessup]

I don't think that's possible. You might be able to use an Embedded Macro to load the lisp. So only the drawing with that macro embeded would load the lisp. The lisp would have to be in a pathw available to everyone.

[krzysztof.psujek]

Actually you can try this
http://www.cadstudio.cz/en/apps/autoexec/
but I never tested it. If it won't work follow with @AllenJessup suggestions.

Chris

[AllenJessup]

Nice. I thought there might be something out there but didn't find it when I searched. Hopefully it will work for the OP.

[krzysztof.psujek]

I knew I saw it once and even I downloaded it (it is in my lisps pack) but I treated it rather as a curiosity.

Chris

[dgorsman]

Backing things up a bit from the other responses...

Why are you using something that no-one else is, on a single drawing?  Why are they not using those tools as well?  Should you be doing this, even if you consider it "faster" "better" etc.?

Any user worth their salt, when confronted by a "This drawing has embedded macro, do you want to run?" warning, will answer not just "No" but "Hells NO!" in this day and age.

If users are supposed to be doing things a certain way, then it should be loaded by default for all users - everyone, doing the same thing, the same way, each time, every time.  That can be done with a bit of organization e.g. LISP and other common files in read-only network locations, loaded through ACAD.LSP and ACADDOC.LSP or other methods.  That's available without any embedding or custom libraries/third-party tools.

[Joe-Bouza]

You can add any lisp to the suitcase in your template and they always be available

[chriscowgill7373]

I'd have to agree with some of the responses the other users have posted,  embedding a lisp file is akin to a virus, which is bad.

Have you tried revising the lisp so it checks the current drawing name before it runs?  if you only want it running on a single drawing, it should be easy enough to add a check for the drawing name.

[Anonymous]

I created this lisp code making available a new command (or routine) that is only useful using a specific drawing.

To me it doesn't make sense to load some code if you will never use it that's is why i only wanted it to load with my drawing otherwise it would be useless.

[Anonymous]

Specifically i made a solid and the lisp function tells the user the height of the solid in the coordinates given by the user on the XY.

[TerryDotson]

While I agree with some here on embedding code that could execute on others machines, there is absolutely nothing wrong with loading a specific lisp file when a drawing is opened.  It can set variables back to needed values, provide drawing specific tools, and much more.  There are tens of thousands of CAD users who can do it with a simple click of a toggle in ToolPac.

To the OP, consider creating a custom partial menu and have it load.  The key is to have a companion MNL file of the same name as the CUIx.  When each drawing loads, AutoCAD will load the MNL file.  In that MNL file you can put a piece of lisp code to get the current drawing path/name, change .dwg to .lsp and if (findfile) finds it, load it.  In other words the MNL file could be your drawing.lsp loader (hopefully you won't need to use s::startup).