Through the Interface

Docking a WPF window inside AutoCAD – Part 3

In this post we’re wrapping up this mini-series on docking, which is part of a much broader story arc around a “command-line helper” tool, of course. But then we’re reaching the end of that, too, I suspect, as the app’s just about done. Hopefully it’s ready for posting to Autodesk Labs, at least. Last time we added right-click dragging to allow our keywords window to be moved around without interrupting the active command. Now we’re taking it a step further to preview docking at one of the four corners of the drawing window, as well as to actually dock... Read more →

Docking a WPF window inside AutoCAD – Part 2

I’m happy to say that the implementation I mentioned in the last post ended up being pretty straightforward. Which is actually great, as I have some important posts to work on for next week. :-) Today we’re going to take a look at the next stage of the “command-line helper” implementation: basic right-click movement of the global keywords dialog, so we can set a custom location for the dialog without needing to use the KWSDOCK command. Here’s the code in action: The main work for this stage was to add support for right-click, mouse move and right mouse-button up... Read more →

Docking a WPF window inside AutoCAD – Part 1

During the course of this week we’re going to look at extending the command-line helper sample posted last week by allowing our global keywords window to “dock” to the four corners of the drawing window as well as to remain fixed at a custom location somewhere on the screen. I use the term “dock” here loosely, as we’re really just placing it in one of the corners of the drawing window. If we wanted a modeless dialog that was properly docked into AutoCAD then we’d almost certainly want to use a PaletteSet. Here’s a quick video demonstrating the KWSDOCK... Read more →

Adding support for global keywords at AutoCAD’s command-line using .NET – Part 2

Today we’re going to look at the implementation talked about in the last post: we’re going to see how it’s possible to use the Application.PreTranslateMessage() method to hack AutoCAD’s message-loop and basically convert typed keywords into global ones. This is actually pretty neat (yes, even if I do say so myself :-) and frankly I’m surprised it works. Here’s the overall approach: Track the characters typed into the command-line Add individual characters into a list Backspace removes the tail of the list Arrow-keys invalidate the tracking: if the user accesses entries in the command-history we can’t deal with that,... Read more →

Adding a global keyword menu to AutoCAD using WPF – Part 2

After introducing this project in the last post, now it’s time to share some code. The project, as it currently stands, contains three source files: the first one relates to AutoCAD – it implements the various commands we’ll use to attach event handlers to tell us when to display (or hide) keywords and the other two files relate to the UI we’ll use to display them. We’re going to use an invisible window which has a child popup containing a listbox of our keywords. Here’s the application in action – for now in English AutoCAD, as that’s what I... Read more →

Adding a global keyword menu to AutoCAD using WPF – Part 1

I’m up in the mountains, supposedly on vacation, but as one of our children woke up with a fever, I’m skipping the morning session on the slopes to stay home with him. Which gives me the chance to start writing up a little project I’ve been working on for our Localization team. Here’s the idea… apparently it’s relatively common in certain countries for AutoCAD users to learn the product in English but then end up working with a localized version of the software. While it’s always possible to use global commands and keywords by prefixing an underscore, it’s not... Read more →

Adding a WPF document tab in AutoCAD 2015 using .NET

A few people expressed an interest in understanding how AutoCAD 2015’s ability to open HTML pages inside its frame – shown in this recent post – could be extended to work with “native” user interfaces. This post shows how that can be done using WPF – the other supported mechanism for adding new documents to AutoCAD’s main frame introduced in the 2015 release. Just as with last week’s post, there really isn’t that much to it: you just need to add your own WPF UserControl to the project and load that into an Autodesk.AutoCAD.Windows.WPFDocumentWindow object and pass it to... Read more →

Supporting AutoCAD 2015’s dark theme

After a little fun last Tuesday around a pink theme for AutoCAD – for which I got at least a few “we should totally do that”s from internal folk in response, so watch this space ;-) – today we’re going to talk more seriously about what’s needed to support the dark theme in your applications. But before that, a big thanks to Lee Ambrosius, who owns – and does a fantastic job with – AutoCAD’s developer documentation. Lee pointed out the online documentation which helped me create this post. If you’re interested in the work Lee and team has... Read more →

Updated tool to understand transformation matrices in AutoCAD

As I started on my linear algebra class, some weeks ago, I decided to dust off the Transformer app I’d written a few years ago and make sure it works in AutoCAD 2014. It actually really helped me in creating appropriate transformation matrices for certain parts of the course. Coincidentally, a few days ago, I received an email from a colleague – who isn’t a programmer but seems to be working on a very interesting side project – who was interested in taking matrix input from an external system and using that to transform AutoCAD geometry. This colleague wanted... Read more →

Inaugural Zurich .NET Developer meet-up

I headed cross to the Zurich area on Tuesday afternoon – which is quite a trek from where I live, around ~2.5 hours by train – to attend the first Zurich .NET Developer meet-up. The event was held in the Microsoft office in Wallisellen: they kindly provided beer and the meeting room, while the session itself was organised by members of the local .NET community. Considering the weather – a pretty serious snowstorm hit the country that day – the event was surprisingly well attended. The main topic of the session was MVVM Light, a lightweight framework developed by... Read more →

Using AutoCAD’s Bindable Object Layer to change the current view using .NET

After looking at how the Bindable Object Layer (BOL) in AutoCAD might be used to get information about the current drawing, in today’s post we’re going to see how it can also be used to manipulate that data (in a fairly limited, albeit useful, way). But first, let’s talk a bit about the origins of the BOL. It was first introduced as an architectural feature of AutoCAD when we were looking at delivering AutoCAD for Mac. It’s common, these days, for programming frameworks to provide some kind of data-binding facility to simplify the creation of UIs: both WPF and... Read more →

A simple MRU browser for AutoCAD data using WinRT

As promised in my last post, I spent some time hacking together a basic application to get a feel for what it’s like to develop inside the WinRT sandbox for Windows 8. If you’re interested in the source code, here it is. Be warned: the code is really just to prove a concept – there’s a lot therein I’d consider sub-optimal for a production application. If you’re more interested in seeing the application in action, but haven’t yet installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, then here’s a quick screencast I recorded: A few comments on the experience of developing... Read more →

Displaying an AutoCAD ribbon tab contextually using .NET

This very interesting feature came to my attention via an internal discussion. Thanks, once again, to George Varghese for providing the base sample used for this post. At various times inside AutoCAD – such as when a block is selected, for instance – a specific ribbon tab is displayed “contextually”. As an example, when you select a Hatch object inside the AutoCAD editor, you should see a hatch-related contextual tab displayed: It’s possible to implement your own, comparable behaviour inside the AutoCAD editor using a combination of a simple .NET module, a XAML file and some CUI editing (or... Read more →

No source available when debugging an AutoCAD plug-in

Given the fact AU 2011 is quickly approaching, I decided it was time to dust off my Kinect-related code and getting it working with the Beta SDK from Microsoft Research. Part of the reason I haven’t been able to do this sooner is that my primary work machine is currently a MacBook Pro running Windows 7 via Parallels, and the Microsoft Kinect driver currently does not support working inside a Virtual Machine. I did start to try to get my previous implementation using OpenNI + NITE to work on this system, but as it uses the nKinect component that... Read more →

Adding an expanding textbox to AutoCAD’s ribbon using .NET

In the last post, we saw a great little sample for adding a textbox to AutoCAD’s ribbon which notifies your application of the “commands” entered into it (however you choose to interpret them in your code). In this post, we’ll take that further and have that textbox expand vertically as text gets entered, wrapping the contents across multiple lines (only breaking the text at the ends of words, too). Here’s the updated C# code, with modified lines in red. You can get the original file here. 1 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices; 2 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.EditorInput; 3 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime; 4 using Autodesk.Windows; 5... Read more →

Adding a textbox to AutoCAD’s ribbon using .NET

This is a really cool little sample put together by Philippe Leefsma, from our DevTech team in Europe, with the help of George Varghese from the AutoCAD Engineering team. Thanks, Philippe and George! :-) This question came up, recently: an ADN member wanted to be able to add an editable textbox to the ribbon inside AutoCAD and then be notified of the data entered into it, as well as being notified when the control gained and lost focus. Here’s some simple C# code that does just this: using Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices; using Autodesk.AutoCAD.EditorInput; using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime; using Autodesk.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Input;... Read more →

Taking a REST

Actually, I wish that were true. I’m planning on taking some time off in October, but that seems a long way off, at this stage. What I’ve actually been doing is working with some REST-based APIs: firstly, I’ve been finishing up work on September’s Plugin of the Month, TransTips for AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, & 3ds Max (to be posted on Autodesk Labs in the next few days). TransTips makes use of the REST API for Bing Translator, to automatically translate tooltips in various products. Secondly, perhaps more excitingly, I’ve been coding against a possible future web service API for... Read more →

Translating tooltips in AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit using .NET

Once again, it turned out to be pretty straightforward to add Inventor support to our TransTips application. We now have a single solution which builds plugins for AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit. The plugins share a common translation and caching engine as well as a WPF graphical user interface for selecting languages. Here’s a demonstration of the various plugins in action: I’ve fixed the right-to-left issue highlighted in the video, incidentally. The next steps are to implement an in-product editing capability and then perhaps to support 3ds Max. One great aspect of this project is that I’m getting to learn... Read more →

A tool to help understand transformation matrices in AutoCAD

As promised, today’s post delivers a simple application that provides a user-interface for the command implemented in this previous post. I chose to implement the UI as a WPF user control which is then hosted by a standard AutoCAD palette. Aside from its core function – to allow composition of transformation matrices to be applied on an AutoCAD object – it demonstrates a couple of handy tips for working with Palettes: Separate the core functionality from our UI, using SendStringToExecute() to call it This will reduce the chance of issues related to Document vs. Session context, document-locking, etc. If... Read more →

AU 2010 Handout: Integrate F# into Your C# or VB.NET Application for an 8x Performance Boost

This handout is for the companion class to the one whose handout formed my last post. While that class was user-focused, this one, “CP322-2 - Integrate F# into Your C# or VB.NET Application for an 8x Performance Boost”, is more developer-focused and takes the hood off the implementation of the BrowsePhotosynth application. The code for this special version of the application – which imports synchronously via C# and synchronously/asynchronously via F# – is available here for download. Introduction This class takes a look at the implementation of BrowsePhotosynth for AutoCAD, the ADN Plugin of the Month from October 2010... Read more →