Someone asked for an example type of thingy... well here goes nothing...
Say you wanted to store a set of standard layer settings outside of an AutoCAD drawing session so that you could use them over and over again. And let's also say that you wanted to say you want them in a place where you can easliy edit them without having to mess with any source code of any kind. All that equals an external data file. Right? Okay.
Now whether you use an *.ini or some other flat text format, is up to you. But with XML and the MSXML DOM 3.0 interface it makes programming a little easier. Mainly because the DOM (Document Object Model) gives the programmer a way to structure data in a logical and nested way (the XML format), as well as giving an Object Oriented way of getting to that data.
Alright here's what an *.ini format might look like for storing layer data...
[Layer]
;;; the properties list: color, linetype, lineweight, plottable
Walls=3,continuous,acByLwDefault,True
Furniture=2,PHANTOM,acByLwDefault,True
Now in an XML manner...
<Layers>
<Layer Name="Walls">
<Color>3</Color>
<LineType>continuous</LineType>
<LineWeight>acByLwDefault</LineWeight>
<Plottable>True</Plottable>
</Layer>
<Layer Name="Furniture">
<Color>2</Color>
<LineType>PHANTOM</LineType>
<LineWeight>acByLwDefault</LineWeight>
<Plottable>True</Plottable>
</Layer>
</Layers>
Now some might say, "Big deal they do the same thing!" And they would be essentially right. But (and there's always a but) using the XML format you can then share that data easily with other types of data storage systems. A lot of other storage systems, like MS Access, Oracle, and SQL Server, have built in tools for translating XML data into a full service database. That can't be said about other text formats, like *.ini.
Mark, Rug,
I have a compiled *.vlx for posting as well as a HTM header file that explains the functions within and how to use them. Where should I send the files?
Se7en,
Yes, Dave does know. In fact I just showed him the other day the API. And he had sort of an attitude like, "Great! Now I don't have to do it."