Custom acad.lsp and acaddoc.lsp

We have talked about several methods to load custom content in previous posts. One of my favorites is loading an enterprise cui which in turn will load an mnl file with the same file name. This is a clean method and keeps all of your custom content organized and easily deployed from a central network location. However, there may be times when you really do not have a user interface (cui) and you just want your custom routine(s) to be loaded. There is a handy built in AutoCAD method for this, the acad.lsp and the acaddoc.lsp.

The acad.lsp is a special routine recognized by AutoCAD and is loaded every time an AutoCAD session is launched. The acaddoc.lsp is a special routine recognized by AutoCAD and is loaded every time an AutoCAD drawing is opened.

We can take advantage of these auto-loading routines to load custom content by placing files named either acad.lsp or acaddoc.lsp in any of our support paths defined by our network based profile. Creating separate (custom) acad.lsp and/or acaddoc.lsp files does not interfere with the delivered AutoCAD files (they just need to be in different folders).

For example, in our AutoCAD profile we have a support path defined (C:\sld):

This could of course be any network path. Let's place a custom acaddoc.lsp file that loads some custom content in this folder.

Now when AutoCAD is launched in a profile where our above path is a support path our custom lisp content is loaded.

Note, since we used acaddoc.lsp our routine will load every time a drawing is opened. If we only want our routine to load when AutoCAD is launched we would change the filename to acad.lsp.

I am not sure if there are other default filenames that behave similarly but the above two work great and should provide as much flexibility as you would need. This does not work for .dll files directly however, if you have a custom .dll you can just place a NETLOAD statement inside your custom acad.lsp or acaddoc.lsp. Remember, once you have an access point to load one routine, you can load as many other lisp routines, .dll files, .arx files, and more that you need.

This approach provides another streamlined method to load and manage custom content for multiple users.

Simple Custom AutoCAD User Profile

In previous posts I have talked about creating AutoCAD user profiles and the different components that can be included in a profile. One of the main reasons to create an AutoCAD user profile is to have specific content available during an AutoCAD drawing session. This content can be anything from network and printer paths, to CAD standards, to custom commands.

This post will go through creating a very simple custom AutoCAD profile and hopefully it will make sense on how to add more information to the profile as needed in your environment.

An AutoCAD user profile has a lot of information in it and without being intimately familiar with it, it is difficult to know what each line in the profile (.arg) file is doing. The good news is it is really not that important if you just want to cut to the chase and create your own custom profile. We will let AutoCAD handle all the complicated stuff and we will focus on only the items we are concerned with (the simple stuff).

First, just a few high level points to make:
An .arg (AutoCAD Registry) file is used to create an AutoCAD user profile and set registry keys on your computer. If you have ever looked (you don't really need to) in your computer's registry you will see all of the AutoCAD user profiles that are defined on your computer. (Note: AutoCAD user profiles are specific to the logged in user).

After installing AutoCAD you should see the Unnamed Profile which is the out-of-the-box delivered AutoCAD user profile.

Let's create a new .arg file with the goal being to create a new AutoCAD user profile on our computer. To keep this simple we only need to think about the custom paths or content we want to add to our profile. In this case we are just going to add an AutoCAD Support Path and point to a custom cui file that we would like to have loaded as our Enterprise Menu File.

Rather than needing to account for all of the other settings in the profile we will let AutoCAD automatically assign everything else. So basically, only the registry keys that we want to override need to be identified in our new .arg file.

To accomplish the above we can create a new .arg file (either by exporting from AutoCAD, or from scratch). Once the .arg file exists we can clean out everything we do not need (so everything except for our support path and Enterprise Menu File). Whatever we do not define in our .arg file AutoCAD will create default registry keys for.

Here is the contents of our custom .arg file that adds a support path and an Enterprise Menu File: (You can edit an .arg file with Notepad)

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.1\ACAD-9001:409\Profiles\SLD_Example\General]

"ACAD"="C:\\SLD\\Support;%InstallFolder%\\support;%InstallFolder%\\fonts;%InstallFolder%\\help;%InstallFolder%\\express;%InstallFolder%\\support\\color;%RoamableRootFolder%\\support;"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.1\ACAD-9001:409\Profiles\SLD_Example\General Configuration]

"EnterpriseMenuFile"="C:\SLD\Support\SLD_2011"

The path in between the brackets [ ] defines the location of the registry keys that we are modifying. Notice it is the same path as the registry location of the Unnamed Profile on our machine (above image) except for once we get to the Profiles location we are creating a new profile name, SLD_Example.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.1\ACAD-9001:409\Profiles\SLD_Example\General]

We are overriding the "ACAD" registry key which is the AutoCAD Support Paths. The below support paths are copied from the Unnamed Profile and we added the 1 support path that we need for our custom profile.

"ACAD"="C:\\SLD\\Support;%InstallFolder%\\support;%InstallFolder%\\fonts;%InstallFolder%\\help;%InstallFolder%\\express;%InstallFolder%\\support\\color;%RoamableRootFolder%\\support;"

We then define the "EnterpriseMenuFile" registry key which is our custom cui file that we want our profile to have. (The cui file could be located in a network location so multiple users all receive the same custom content.)

"EnterpriseMenuFile"="C:\SLD\Support\SLD_2011"

Now when we point to this .arg file from our AutoCAD Desktop Shortcut and launch AutoCAD a new profile will be created on your computer:

Even though we only defined 2 registry keys you will notice that all of the other profile information is automatically defined by AutoCAD.

You now have a completely separate and custom AutoCAD user profile that contains all of the out-of-the-box AutoCAD settings with our additional custom content. This can be shared over a network and remember, once we load that Enterprise cui file we can gain access to custom content with an .mnl file that has the same name as the cui file.

I created a new Ribbon tab in this cui file so you can see that is available to us in our new profile:

This approach can offer a very streamlined method to manage multiple AutoCAD user profiles that maybe you have for each client. Only define the registry keys that you want to override (i.e. suport paths, cui file, maybe plot styles, etc.) and you can keep your profiles very simple and portable by letting AutoCAD do the rest of the work. This .arg file that we created can easily be upgraded to the next version of AutoCAD since we know AutoCAD will automatically define all of the other registry keys that we are not overriding. (Note, the registry path to the profile would be different for each version of AutoCAD - this it the path in the brackets [ ] mentioned above).

Note, you can build your profile in AutoCAD and export it out to get the .arg file. You can then remove any of the registry keys that you are not overriding and you will be left with your simple custom AutoCAD user profile.

C#.Net: Use KeyWords To Provide Choices For Users

Let's add some keyword options to our circle MText program. The current version allows the user to enter a string to search for and then places a red circle around all matching MText entities in the drawing. To practice with the GetKeywords method we will let the user choose a different color for the circle from a list of choices.
Here is the C# code, note extended comments from previous versions have been removed.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.EditorInput;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Geometry;

namespace SLD_Demo

{

    public class MTextTools

    {

        [CommandMethod("SLDcirText")]

        public void SLDcirText()

        {

            //get current document

            Document acDoc =

                Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument;

            //get AutoCAD database

            Database acCurDb = acDoc.Database;

            //get string to search for

            String sldStrToSrch = SLDgetStringFromUser(acDoc);

            //get color of circle

            int sldCirColor = SLDgetColorFromUser(acDoc);

            //start db transaction

            using (Transaction acTrans =

                acCurDb.TransactionManager.StartTransaction())

            {

                //open block table

                BlockTable bt = (BlockTable)acTrans.GetObject

                    (acCurDb.BlockTableId, OpenMode.ForRead);

                BlockTableRecord btr = (BlockTableRecord)

                    acTrans.GetObject(bt[BlockTableRecord.ModelSpace],

                    OpenMode.ForRead);

                //iterate through block table to locate mtext objects

                foreach (ObjectId id in btr)

                {

                    //open each object to read

                    DBObject obj = acTrans.GetObject

                        (id, OpenMode.ForRead);

                    //only deal with MText objects

                    MText dbMText = obj as MText;

                    //if current object is Mtext

                    if (dbMText != null)

                    {

                        String curTxtValue = dbMText.Contents;

                        //and if the contents include the string entered

                        //by user 

                        if (string.Equals(sldStrToSrch, curTxtValue,

                            StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))

                        {

                            //draw a circle around the mtext entity

                            /*add an additional parameter from the last

                              version to pass the color index*/

                            SLDdrawCir(acCurDb, acTrans,

                                dbMText, sldCirColor);

                        }

                    }

                }

                //commit the transaction so we do not leave the db open

                acTrans.Commit();

            }

        }

        //function to get text string from user

        public String SLDgetStringFromUser(Document acDoc)

        {

            PromptStringOptions pStrOpts = new PromptStringOptions(

                "\nFind What: ");

            //control the prompt string options to behave like we want

            //such as allow spaces to be entered

            pStrOpts.AllowSpaces = true;

            //retrieve the string entered by user

            PromptResult pStrRes = acDoc.Editor.GetString(pStrOpts);

            //and assign to a new string variable

            String sldStr = pStrRes.StringResult;

            //return the string variable to calling function

            return sldStr;

        }

        /*function to get desired color from user. Gets preferred

          color entered as string, converts to int, and returns*/

        public int SLDgetColorFromUser(Document acDoc)

        {

            /*The GetKeywords method allows a selection to be presented

              to the user and requires a matching value to be entered.

              Error handling is already built in, if an invalid option

              is entered a message is displayed and the user is prompted

              again. Also, a matching value can be the first letter (not

              case sensitive) or some or all of a keyword. A default

              value can also be defined. The Message value is important

              too, this is the main message displayed along with the list

              of keywords.*/

            PromptKeywordOptions pKeyOpts = new PromptKeywordOptions("");

            pKeyOpts.Message = "\nSelect color of circle ";

            pKeyOpts.Keywords.Add("Red");

            pKeyOpts.Keywords.Add("Green");

            pKeyOpts.Keywords.Add("Yellow");

            pKeyOpts.Keywords.Add("Blue");

            pKeyOpts.Keywords.Default = "Red";

            //call GetKeywords and pass in our options

            PromptResult pKeyRes = acDoc.Editor.GetKeywords(pKeyOpts);

            //create int value to store color index (default to red)

            int sldCirColor = 1;

            /*switch statement to convert the color string

              to a color index value*/

            switch (pKeyRes.StringResult)

            {

                case "Green":

                    sldCirColor = 3;

                    break;

                case "Yellow":

                    sldCirColor = 2;

                    break;

                case "Blue":

                    sldCirColor = 5;

                    break;

            }

            return sldCirColor;

        }

        //function to draw circle around an MText object

        public void SLDdrawCir(Database acCurDb,

            Transaction acTrans, MText MtextObj,

            int cirColor)

        {

            //define a new point object for the center point of circle

            Point3d cenPoint = new Point3d();

            //use the location method of the Mtext object to define

            //the center point coordinates

            cenPoint = MtextObj.Location;

            //define a new Circle object

            Circle textCir = new Circle();

            textCir.Center = cenPoint;

            textCir.Diameter = 1.0;

            //assign color index the value entered by user

            textCir.ColorIndex = cirColor;

            //now add the circle to the drawing (model space)

            BlockTable acBlkTbl;

            acBlkTbl = acTrans.GetObject(

                acCurDb.BlockTableId, OpenMode.ForRead) as BlockTable;

            BlockTableRecord acBlkTblRec;

            acBlkTblRec = acTrans.GetObject(

                acBlkTbl[BlockTableRecord.ModelSpace],

                OpenMode.ForWrite)

                as BlockTableRecord;

            acBlkTblRec.AppendEntity(textCir);

            acTrans.AddNewlyCreatedDBObject(textCir, true);

        }

    }

}

To test, NETLOAD the .dll into AutoCAD and place some MText entities. Try entering an invalid keyword. Also, test out entering just the first letter of a keyword, the first few letters, or the entire string. It all works!

C#.Net: Circle MText Objects Matching String Entered By User

In my last post we created a C#.Net program to place a red circle around all MText entities in a drawing. Let's add some code to allow the user to enter a specific string value to place circles around. The descriptive inline comments that were in the first program are not duplicated here for clarity.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.EditorInput;

using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Geometry;

namespace SLD_Demo

{

    public class MTextTools

    {

        [CommandMethod("SLDcirText")]

        public void SLDcirText()

        {

            //get current document

            Document acDoc =

                Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument;

            //get AutoCAD database

            Database acCurDb = acDoc.Database;

            //get string to search for

            String sldStrToSrch = SLDgetStringFromUser(acDoc);

            //start db transaction

            using (Transaction acTrans =

                acCurDb.TransactionManager.StartTransaction())

            {

                //open block table

                BlockTable bt = (BlockTable)acTrans.GetObject

                    (acCurDb.BlockTableId, OpenMode.ForRead);

                BlockTableRecord btr = (BlockTableRecord)

                    acTrans.GetObject(bt[BlockTableRecord.ModelSpace],

                    OpenMode.ForRead);

                //iterate through block table to locate mtext objects

                foreach (ObjectId id in btr)

                {

                    //open each object to read

                    DBObject obj = acTrans.GetObject

                        (id, OpenMode.ForRead);

                    //only deal with MText objects

                    MText dbMText = obj as MText;

                    //if current object is Mtext

                    if (dbMText != null)

                    {

                        //assign value of current MText object to a new

                        //String variable

                        String curTxtValue = dbMText.Contents;

                        //now compare to the string entered by user

                        /*I am using the Equals method and overriding to

                         not be case sensitive. This method is returning

                         a boolean value and we are looking for true.

                         There are several string comparison methods.

                         The Contains method would return true if the

                         string entered by user is a part of any Mtext

                         entities. The code for this is:

                           if (curTxtValue.Contains(sldStrToSrch))

                        */

                        if (string.Equals(sldStrToSrch, curTxtValue,

                            StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))

                        {

                            //draw a circle around the mtext entity

                            SLDdrawCir(acCurDb, acTrans, dbMText);

                        }

                    }

                }

                //commit the transaction so we do not leave the db open

                acTrans.Commit();

            }

        }

        //function to get text string from user

        public String SLDgetStringFromUser(Document acDoc)

        {

            PromptStringOptions pStrOpts = new PromptStringOptions(

                "\nFind What: ");

            //control the prompt string options to behave like we want

            //such as allow spaces to be entered

            pStrOpts.AllowSpaces = true;

            //retrieve the string entered by user

            PromptResult pStrRes = acDoc.Editor.GetString(pStrOpts);

            //and assign to a new string variable

            String sldStr = pStrRes.StringResult;

            //return the string variable to calling function

            return sldStr;

        }

        //function to draw circle around an MText object

        public void SLDdrawCir(Database acCurDb,

            Transaction acTrans, MText MtextObj)

        {

            //define a new point object for the center point of circle

            Point3d cenPoint = new Point3d();

            //use the location method of the Mtext object to define

            //the center point coordinates

            cenPoint = MtextObj.Location;

            //define a new Circle object

            /*we use the center point defined above, assign a diameter

             and assign a color using the ColorIndex method from the

             circle object*/

            Circle textCir = new Circle();

            textCir.Center = cenPoint;

            textCir.Diameter = 1.0;

            textCir.ColorIndex = 1;

            //now add the circle to the drawing (model space)

            /*We need to add it to the block table, this is the same

             basic operations when adding geometry to a drawing*/

            BlockTable acBlkTbl;

            acBlkTbl = acTrans.GetObject(

                acCurDb.BlockTableId, OpenMode.ForRead) as BlockTable;

            BlockTableRecord acBlkTblRec;

            acBlkTblRec = acTrans.GetObject(

                acBlkTbl[BlockTableRecord.ModelSpace],

                OpenMode.ForWrite)

                as BlockTableRecord;

            acBlkTblRec.AppendEntity(textCir);

            acTrans.AddNewlyCreatedDBObject(textCir, true);

        }

    }

}

To test this build the solution and NETLOAD the .dll into AutoCAD. Place some MText objects in the drawing and then type in SLDcirText at the command line. You will be prompted to enter a string to search for. Enter a string and regardless of case the matching strings should be circled.