Enterprise CUI

[ronsarlo]

Hey guys,

My Background:
1 year drafting cert, no real programming knowledge.
CAD Lead for 50 people (about 10 months now).
You guys have been such a fantastic help in helping me learn lisp.
Unfortunately, I am stuck again.

My Work Situation:
I am running a fair sized group in a much larger company.
The company doesn't provide perfer tools, nor do they handle stuff at the client level.
That's my job.

My Tech Situation:
- AutoCAD 2008 (vanilla)
- Corporate addon with menus and dialogue boxes
- Client addon with toolbar.

Seems like both the Corporate and Client addons show up in the CUI Manager as partial CUIs.

My Problem:
What i have been trying to build is an Enterprise CUI.
I want it to load the Corporate and Client addons, then run my lisp.


I have my entire lisp within a s::startup command.

 
;---------- Load Applications ----------
;
(defun s::startup()
(load "annoallvisibleoff")
(load "viewportlock")
;(load "xreflock")
;
;
;------ GENERAL SYSTEM VARIABLES ----------
;
 (setvar "annoautoscale" -1)
 (setvar "demandload" 3) ;loads external applications to manipulate 3rd party objects. ex. excel tables. 
 (setvar "dimassoc" 2)
 (setvar "dragmode" 2)
 (setvar "expert" 1) ;Suppresses “About to regen, proceed?” and “Really want to turn the current layer off?” (-LAYER)
 (setvar "fieldeval" 31) ;fields update on open, save, plot, etransmit, regeneration
 (setvar "fontalt" "simplex.shx")
 (setvar "grips" 1) 
 (setvar "isavepercent" 0)
 (setvar "maxactvp" 64)
 (setvar "maxsort" 1000)
 (setvar "mirrtext" 0)
 (setvar "mtexted" "internal")
 (setvar "mtextfixed" 2)
 (setvar "osnapnodelegacy" 0)
 (setvar "osoptions" 3)
 (setvar "peditaccept" 1)
 (setvar "proxynotice" 0)
 (setvar "publishcollate" 0)
 (setvar "regenmode" 1)
 (setvar "visretain" 1)
 (setvar "savetime" 10)
 (setvar "selectionannodisplay" 1) 
 (setvar "selectionpreview" 3)
 (setvar "setbylayermode" 127)
 (setvar "snapmode" 1)
 (command "snap" "5")
 (setvar "ucsicon" 3)
 (setvar "visretain" 1)
 (setvar "vplayeroverridesmode" 1)
 (setvar "xloadctl" 2)
 (setvar "xrefnotify" 2)
 (setvar "xreftype" 1)
;
;
;------ LINETYPE SYSTEM VARIABLES ----------
;
 (setvar "celtscale" 1)
 (setvar "ltscale" 0.5)
 (setvar "msltscale" 1)
 (setvar "psltscale" 1)
;
;
;------ MAKE THE DRAWING EASY TO WORK WITH ----------
;
 (setvar "cecolor" "bylayer")
 (setvar "clayer" "0")
 (setvar "celtype" "bylayer")
 (setvar "celweight" -1)
 (setvar "layereval" 1)
 (setvar "layernotify" 0)
 (setvar "textstyle" "standard")
 (command "-dimstyle" "restore" "standard") ;must use "command" because dimstyle system variable is read only.
 (command "-color" "bylayer")
 (command "imageframe" "2")
 (command "-units" "2" "3" "" "" "" "") ;decimal, 3 places, as found, as found, as found, as found.
 (command "zoom" "e")
;
 (setq timode(getvar "tilemode"))
 (if(equal timode 0)(command "pspace"))
;
;
;------ CLEAN THE DRAWING ----------
;
 (setvar "clayer" "0")
 (command "-scalelistedit" "r" "y" "e")
 (command "audit" "y")
 (command "-purge" "regapps" "*" "no")
 (command "-purge" "all" "*" "no")
;
;
(princ)
)
;---------- END ----------

Is there I can make my enterprise CUI prioritize after the other Partial CUIs?

thanks for the help!

[irneb]

Firstly, whenever you use s:startup to define anything to happen at start, use the (defun-q s:startup ...... This ensures that you don't overwrite any other s:startup custom code, it'll "append" your code to any already existing s:startup function.

As to the rest, you can use the vla functions to unload a menu group - so you can unload any conflicting CUI's. Then to load a CUI as an Enterprise CUI, the only way I know of is to change the Registry value in: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.1\ACAD-6001:409\Profiles\<Each Profile>\General Configuration\EnterpriseMenuFile

Even the ActiveX stuff doesn't seem to have an EnterpriseCUI in the Preferences->Files collection. Maybe you should rather look at a custom install package. I use AcadInst ... just do a Google on it ... it's free unless you don't want to see any dialogs.

[irneb]

Scratch that! The Developer Help, just doesn't show any EnterpriseMenuFile in the preferences collection. Try this:

(vl-load-com) ;Ensure the VLisp extensions are loaded
(setq acad (vlax-get-acad-object)) ;Get the acad application object
(setq prefs (vla-get-Preferences acad)) ;Get the preferences collection object
(setq files (vla-get-Files prefs)) ;Get the files collection from preferences object
(vla-put-EnterpriseMenuFile files "the path to your enterprise CUI") ;Set the enterprise CUI file

Hope this helps

[RobertB]

Firstly, whenever you use s:startup to define anything to happen at start, use the (defun-q s:startup ...... This ensures that you don't overwrite any other s:startup custom code, it'll "append" your code to any already existing s:startup function.

Umm... nope, that alone does not "ensure that you don't overwrite."

You need to define your own function with defun-q (to make a list-based function) and then append that to any existing S::Startup (which hopefully was also defined using defun-q).

Example:

(defun-q i:MyStartup () 
 (princ "\nRunning my startup code.") 
 (princ))

(setq S::Startup (append S::Startup i:MyStartup))

This is a simplistic approach. There are more details under the defun-q-list-set/ref function documentation.

[howardjosh]

could one of you guys explain to me what is going on with:
i:
s::

I've never used either of these. Never even seen the i: before. Are there any more special cases besides these 2?

[RobertB]

could one of you guys explain to me what is going on with:
i:
s::

I've never used either of these. Never even seen the i: before. Are there any more special cases besides these 2?

S::Startup is a special function provided by Autodesk that will automatically execute only once the drawing editor is fully loaded.

Any other prefix, aside from C:, is usable by the programmer. I use "i:" in my online code to indicate an internally defined function. It is just a personal convention to help organize my code and has no other effect.

[ronsarlo]

Umm... nope, that alone does not "ensure that you don't overwrite."

You need to define your own function with defun-q (to make a list-based function) and then append that to any existing S::Startup (which hopefully was also defined using defun-q).

Example:

(defun-q i:MyStartup () 
 (princ "\nRunning my startup code.") 
 (princ))
 
(setq S::Startup (append S::Startup i:MyStartup))

This is a simplistic approach. There are more details under the defun-q-list-set/ref function documentation.

Robert,

My apologies, I am unsure how your little bit of code fits into mine?

It looks like you are defining "mystartup" to be something.
But I am not sure what.

And then you set s::startup, which has been appeneded to your internally defined "mystartup", but again, i am unsure where we have defined it.

thank you

[Opie]

He is defining "mystartup" as list with the defun-q function. He is assuming the "S::Startup" function was also defined with the defun-q function and then appending the "mystartup" list to the "S::Startup" list.

[RobertB]

It looks like you are defining "mystartup" to be something.
But I am not sure what.

And then you set s::startup, which has been appeneded to your internally defined "mystartup", but again, i am unsure where we have defined it.

The code you posted is overwriting S::Startup which is bad practice. Move your code over to a function defined using defun-q and then append your function to S::Startup.

[ronsarlo]

RobertB,

I am sorry, but it seems I am a bit slow on the uptake.

I have 2 scenarios which I access via separate profiles.
scenario a: company software which loads with defun s::startup
scenario b: client software which also loads with defun s::startup

I would like my lisp to load and execute after company and client software.


Can you help me understand what I should be trying to code? and why?


so sorry