Topic: Just wondering through the Object Browser in VB and C#

[ReneRam]

I have some time to spend while my computer is doing some long tasks in AutoCAD and I'm using it to see the differences between managed classes in VB and C#. I found a few items in VB that are not  available in C# and I didn't know exist, but I can't even find out what they do; I tried googling but with no result, here's a list maybe someone can give me a clue:

Public Sub JoinEntity(ByVal secondaryEntity As
Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.Entity)

Public Sub PopHighlight(ByVal subId As
Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.FullSubentityPath)
Public Sub PushHighlight(ByVal subId As
Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.FullSubentityPath,
ByVal highlightStyle As Autodesk.AutoCAD.GraphicsInterface.HighlightStyle)

All members of "Member of Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.Entity"

Anyone has an idea?

[sinc]

I'm actually confused about why things would be different between VB vs. C#, since they're hitting the same DLLs...  I don't use VB very often, and I hadn't run into any differences in my limited VB usage.

[ReneRam]

As long as I know they should be the same, but if you look in Visual Studio at the Object Browser you'll find that VB has them and C# does not. Not only, I looked also in the arxdocumentation with no success, it's just a matter of curiosity.

[Jeff_M]

Are you comparing the same versions? I see that 2010 has none of these but 2011 does, and they all are shown in both C# & VB.NET.

[ReneRam]

I'm trying to follow Autodesk on this, they recomend Visual Studio 2008 for AutoCAD 2011 development, and I see the same result in XP Pro and in Win7.
In any case the question was what do they do?

[sinc]

Well, it used to be that you could simply turn highlighting for an object on and off.  But that might have started causing problems, when people started adding multiple event handlers, etc., where multiple things are trying to affect highlighting.  So they probably added "PushHighlight" and "PopHighlight" so that highlighting wouldn't be turned on by one handler, only to have it turned back off prematurely by another handler.

Just a guess, anyway...  That's a typical reason why someone would make a change like that.

I'm not sure about the JoinEntity, except that my first guess might be something to do with adding segments to polylines...?  Although that would be an odd thing to stick on the Entity class; I would expect something like that to be on the Curve class.

[Jeff_M]

I found the descriptions for all of these in the 2011 ObjectARX docs "arxmgd.chm". The descriptions are pretty detailed in what they do.... They are also listed under the "What's new" section for 2011.

[Jeff_M]

Here's the full description for the PushHighlight:

This wraps the ObjectARX AcDbEntity::pushHighlight() method.

The later pushed highlight effect will override the former push highlight effect. We could highlight different sub-entity with different style at the same time.

If we first push sub-entity with highlight style1, then push entity with highlight style2, then the whole entity will display highlight style2. After pop the entity highlight, the former sub-entity will continue display with highlight style1.

If we first push entity with highlight style1, then push sub-entity with highlight style2, then the whole entity will not be highlight, and only display highlight of sub-entity with highlight style2. After pop the highlight of former sub-entity, the whole entity will display with highlight style1.

[sinc]

Wow...  How bizarre.

I looked in the ObjectARX documentation, and I did not find any documentation for those methods.  But then I noticed that even though I'm opening the files from my ObjectARX 2011 install directory, it looks like the files are actually the 2010 documentation (see image).

What's going on?

I downloaded my ObjectARX kit from ADN shortly before the general public release...  Since I know Jeff is NOT on ADN, I suspect he downloaded the publicly-posted version.

Is this something where the ObjectARX kit released to ADN had bad documentation...?  Or if not, does anyone have any idea why my 2011 ObjectARX kit has the 2010 documentation?

[Jeff_M]

Look at the file dates, Sinc. Looks like the mgd docs weren't ready when they packaged that up. The next one in the list looks old, too.

My arx.mgd file has a date of April 6, arxmgr is March 15, and arxref is April 5, all 2010.

Sounds like a nasty note to ADN is in order

[Jeff_M]

Here's the skinny from the ObjectARX download page:

ObjectARX for AutoCAD 2011 (32-bit and 64-bit):

 I accept the license agreement.
Download Documentation Only (47 MB)

 I accept the license agreement.
Download Complete ObjectARX SDK (75 MB)

Please Note: the Complete ObjectARX SDK includes the 2010 documentation. For the most recent 2011 documentation, please download the Documentation as well.

[Kerry]

Just fired up to post that note.
There is a file ObjectARX_2011_Documentation.exe which has the current (ac2011)  chm's

{add piccy}

[sinc]

How weird.  I wonder why they wouldn't just add the new documentation to the SDK, rather than have two downloads.  After all, the documentation is 3/4 of the complete SDK, so that's a lot of unnecessary downloading.

[Kerry]

I 'spose that's one positive for web based help ...

of course the fact that there are no indicators for what has changed goes to the other side of the ledger.

[ReneRam]

Just to add a little more confusion, here's my download from the ADN as soon as it was available  

Have a look at dates and sizes; it would be nice to have some kind of notification for changes and updates.