What type are you thinking of? A mobile version of The Swamp, perhaps?Are we talking APPS here (as suggested by "app store" in the first post) or something for CAD?
Yes something that is general enough for a number of people to use, and nothing too big that would tough to handle, but thought it would be good for going through the whole process.What type are you thinking of? A mobile version of The Swamp, perhaps?Are we talking APPS here (as suggested by "app store" in the first post) or something for CAD?
Jeff,Good point as I do not know the difference between a add-in or plug-in.
It is very kind of you to volunteer to assist in developing an application, or plug-in by public suggestions. So, thanks for your generosity!
Perhaps it would be prudent to first identify a general direction for the scale, and scope, before we get lost in the weeds trying to be overly specific... To build a stand-alone application to function outside of AutoCAD, or to build a plug-in to function within AutoCAD?
IMO, there's more to be gained, and more users that will participate in the debugging, etc. if we go with the latter. A plug-in also allows for generalization in that we can develop a plug-in that is supported across multiple platforms (i.e., Vanilla AutoCAD, and verticals alike)... hopefully.
Generally speaking, there's a ton of things that can be done, or at least refined.
Good point as I do not know the difference between a add-in or plug-in.
It is very important to establish up front what we can.
Will think of some guidelines....
... was trying to stay out of it because I did not want people think I was trying to use their time for my personal gain.
I like the idea of a more diverse Tab Add-on.As long as the code works correctly, it shouldn't really matter which language we choose - it could be any of the .NET languages..
Although I do VB not C# I would like to help.
I like the idea of a more diverse Tab Add-on.
Although I do VB not C# I would like to help.
... However, as you'll see by reading the thread, this must be done in C++/ObjectARX. :| *kicks dirt*So what if we did it in a palette instead of tabs?
... However, as you'll see by reading the thread, this must be done in C++/ObjectARX. :| *kicks dirt*So what if we did it in a palette instead of tabs?
Think of the Layers palette but simpler . . . and with drawing files not layers obviously. :)
The ability to write custom properties with out the need to open AutoCAD ??
The ability to write custom properties with out the need to open AutoCAD ??
Yep, like I said before. (http://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=42215.msg473848#msg473848)
The ability to write custom properties with out the need to open AutoCAD ??
Yep, like I said before. (http://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=42215.msg473848#msg473848)
The app that you linked reads the properties, There is no write ability of custom properties with out opening autocad or truedwg.
About
Enhance Your User's Experience with the New DWG Infotip Shell Extension.
Show the DWG properties as an Infotip (tooltip) in Explorer or even from file dialog boxes within AutoCAD.
(http://www.jtbworld.com/images/DwgInfoTip_2013.png)
Use DWGPROPS in AutoCAD and add information in the Summary or Custom tabs and it will show up just hovering above a DWG file.
The Infotip will show the version of the DWG file, file size, date modified and most property information.
PROPULATE allows quick, automated population of the Drawing Properties dialog data fields.
No need to have AutoCAD installed. That means that everyone at your company can see this information.
No need to open the drawing to know information like revision and other valuable information in the drawing.
<snip>
The freeware version is showing the DWG file format and title.
(http://www.jtbworld.com/images/DwgInfoTip_2013_freeware_small.png)
See also the complementary application DWG Columns for Explorer (http://www.jtbworld.com/dwg-explorer-column-handler.htm) to show the information in columns in Explorer.
This should test the juices.I think that would be a good starter then the open close drawing thing , and will post something later with an example and expalnation on intent and and how I think this community could help produce some good learning material and hopefully with minor tweaks could be used for production code.
Rescale a Template drawing. ( assume the drawing is current active doc.)
Will deal with dims, linetypes and LinetypeScales, TextStyles, Units, Metric(etc)
The routine should work an a 'used' drawing too ..
Any existing displayed entitys should NOT change in size or location. ....
.. just a thought.
and the next step :
a startup routine to set user settings.
:)
Hopefully people are still interested...
I think it would be great to create some libraries that could used to help development. Unless correctly implemented it would waste people’s time and resources and fall flat on its face.
Probably the first thing to do is define what it is we would want to accomplish and see if it is feasible then decide if the knowledge and resources are available for accomplishing such a task.
I could be completely wrong but I think they did a pretty good job designing the .NET base libraries. So we could learn from their experiences, user studies, etc..
Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries (http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Design-Guidelines-Conventions-Libraries/dp/0321545613) looks like good book and from looking through it they seem pretty honest by including examples how they messed and should have done it differently.
I think it would be a great learning experience to create a small useable add-in or little tool as if it were going to the app store.
From beginning to deployment.
To make sure it is done for learning experience and not me just trying to get others to create a tool, maybe people could post some suggestions or a vote, but I would stay out of the decision process.
I know people are busy and have obligations but hopefully we could some people to participate.
Hopefully some of you knowledgeable and experienced guys would be willing to throw in suggestions and tips and comments to help keep it steered in a decent direction and keep it from gettin to un-maintable.
We could break it up it smaller parts and assign certain parts to people willing to participate.
Hopefully some good learning experiences could come from it and show insight on looking at the project at different levels from the big picture down to a expression.
Possibly some other useful things could come from it as creating some functions that will test the code on a library of drawings that have many different scenarios locked layer, xrefs attached, different UCS's, different versions, etc...
Using the functionality from commandline vs form or ribbon.
Used in different flavours MEP, Civil, etc......
Anyone intrested?