Reactors - Persistent, LData, XData...

[stusic]

I have a reactor lisp that I'd like to include in *some* drawings and auto-load each time a user opens the drawing. But because I don't want to do it on all drawings, I can't add it to acaddoc.lsp. I've read persistent reactors are sketchy at best, LData is simple, but not as useful as XData.

So my question is: What method should be used, and how do I call it?

Thanks

[Serhan_BAKIR]

Hi,
i am placing text entities with special layer content and height. reactor can check for this hidden text in the drawing and decide wether to run or not.

I have a reactor lisp that I'd like to include in *some* drawings and auto-load each time a user opens the drawing. But because I don't want to do it on all drawings, I can't add it to acaddoc.lsp. I've read persistent reactors are sketchy at best, LData is simple, but not as useful as XData.

So my question is: What method should be used, and how do I call it?

Thanks

[dgorsman]

I use a combination of extension dictionaries and XRecords to identify what a drawing is for this type of situation. I include checks for this in the acaddoc.lsp file (technically, its somewhere else which gets called by the acaddoc.lsp...). Keep in mind that because you load a LSP file with a reactor defined in it, doesn't mean you actually need to start said reactor. So you could add a very short segment to the acaddoc.lsp in the same manner as "If drawing type X *and* reactor start function is defined/loaded, then start the reactor (Quaid)".

[BlackBox]

Building on dgorsman's post, and depending on your setup, we even use our file naming convention... if vl-String-Search / WcMatch = non-Nill, load the reactor, etc..

We're on NCS, so it makes relying on file naming convention simple, but the same concept applies to directory structure, etc..

[stusic]

That's good info. I use acaddoc.lsp to manage the vast majority of our drawings/lisp/standards, so being able to load the reactor in this is good news. Now that I see it can be done, I should learn how to use one

[BlackBox]

Now that I see it can be done, I should learn how to use one

Pseudo-code:

(vl-load-com)
;;;--------------------------------------------------------------------;
;;; start reactor function
(defun ReactorCommand:Start ()
  (or *Reactor_Command*
      (setq *Reactor_Command*
             (vlr-command-reactor
               "My Command Reactor"
               '(
                 (:vlr-commandwillstart . Callback:CommandWillStart)
                 ;;<-- other events here
                )
             )
      )
  )
  (prompt "\nCommand reactor loaded. ")
  (princ)
)
;;;--------------------------------------------------------------------;
;;; CommandWillStart function
(defun Callback:CommandWillStart (rea cmd)
)
;;;--------------------------------------------------------------------;
;;; conditional reactor load
(if <DrawingMatchesCriteriaExpressionHere>
  (ReactorCommand:Start)
)
(princ)