AutoCAD and VBA?

[Anonymous]

I have moderate experience with AutoCAD and fairly basic experience with VBA, but I never learned using VBA with AutoCAD together (combined). What Is AutoCAD/VBA combined a lot different from AutoCAD and VBA by itself?

A job I am applying for says that you need experience with VBA and AutoCAD, but I am not sure if they mean by AutoCad/VBA combined or AutoCAD and VBA as separate (if the latter, then I am eligible for this job, if the former, then I am not).

[tramber]

To my opinion : you can consider yourself as quite eligible.

It takes half a day to know the Acad Tree-model.

I can also guarantee that in a week or two, you could do as well in VisualLisp, some basic but good routines.

It's on you

As far as I know, you must download VBA for Acad and add it to an installation when Vlisp is already included. But I agree that it is not the point.

[Ed.Jobe]

VBA cannot run separate from any program. It must run "inside" the application, i.e. it runs in the same process as the host application. VBA has a common language basis, but each host application has its own object model. Perhaps you have been using VBA inside of Excel?

[norman.yuan]

In the term "VBA", "A" is the main focus point, meaning Application with VB development environment built-in, which is CLOSELY tied to the application (MS Word, Excel, Outlook, or AutoCAD). One cannot separate VBA from its host application. The minor exception with AutoCAD VBA is that the latest AutoCAD version does not install its VBA by default, one needs to install it separately. But it by no means AutoCAD VBA exists by itself, but because VBA in AutoCAD was going dead and only revived later, but with seviours usability issue due to the fact of lack of support to 64-bit VBA/COM technology.

If you have never done AutoCAD VBA, but have experiece with other VBA (Excel/Word/Outlook/Access), you may be able to quickly pick up your AutoCAD VBA skill, depending on how good your understanding/knowledge to AutoCAD. If you have AutoCAD LISP experince, it would be helpful. Still, it might still be days or weeks away to be able to develop a reasonable VBA program in AutoCAD. 

IMO, at this stage of AutoCAD (with VBA has been fading out for quite a while), if a company needs some that can do AutoCAD VBA, it is likely it looks for someone can provide quick solutions, or fix exisitng VBA programs. It is definitely not worth starting to develop new, advanced CAD solution with AutoCAD VBA.

If you are confident that you can pick up the AutoCAD-specific VBA skill, say 3 - 5 days, and have AutoCAD available, you may want to try to find out what the job is expect to do, and come up with some sample code that you can give a short demo (this would be what I'd ask applicant for this kind of job to do).