A 421 page e-book on how to customize Bricscad written by Ralph Grabowski .
A thoroughly written reference book for customizing and programming Bricscad V8. Illustrations are in full color - available for immediate download in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format or on CD at checkout.
Lean how to customize Bricscad!
This e-book is based on the popular Tailoring IntelliCAD series but updated for Bricscad V8:
New Features include:
•Using the Settings dialog box.
•The new Customize dialog box.
•LISP function summary.
•Creating dialog boxes with DCL.
•Writing DIESEL code.
•Complete DCL reference & more!
Included in all Ralph Grabowski’s PDF books:
• All illustrations in full color.
• Formatted for printing on standard 8.5×11 paper.
• Margins designed for three-hole punching.
Book Also Covers:
• Introduction to customizing.
• Changing the Bricscad environment.
• Aliases and keyboard shortcuts.
• Toolbar modification and macros.
• Menu customization and macros.
• Custom linetypes.
• Custom hatch patterns.
• Custom shapes/fonts.
• Creating complex linetypes.
• Writing script files.
• Introduction to LISP programming.
• Understanding DXF.
• New! Dabbling in Visual Basic
for Applications — code and forms.
Other book features:
• Comments on AutoCAD compatibility.
• Dozens and dozens of tips.
• Illustrations in full color.
• Windows Vista screen grabs.
Table of contents
Chapter 1 — introduction to customizing bricscad
The Many Ways to Customizing, Which Customization?, The History of IntelliCAD, The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium, History of Bricscad, What’s New in Bricscad V8, Drawing Explorer, Properties Bar, Settings Dialog Box, Tips for Bricscad Users.
Chapter 2 — changing bricscad’s settings
Touring the Settings Dialog Box, Toolbar, Categorized/Alphabetic, Export, Drawing/Dimensions/Program Options, Find/Find Options, Accessing and Changing Values, Settings in Categorized Order, Drawing Section, Dimensions Section, Program Options Section, System Variables in Alphabetical Order.
Chapter 3 — customizing bricscad’s environment
Starting Bricscad, Command Line Options, Command Line Switches, /b Switch, /l Switch, /s Switch, /p Switch, Regserver and Unregserver Switches, Changing User Interface Colors, Background Color, Cursor Color and Size, UI Parameters Controlled by Windows, Snap Cursor Options, Hyperlink Cursor Options, Support File Paths, Location of Preferences Files, Some Files Settings, Projects, Printer Support, Templates, Dictionaries, Log Files, File Dialogs Section.
Chapter 4 — introducing the customize dialog
Touring the Customize Dialog Box, File Menu, Default Cui Content, CUI Customization File, Tabs, Shortcut Menus, Revert & Other Buttons, Tools Available in Bricscad — Menu Order, Tools Available in Bricscad — Alphabetical Order.
Chapter 5 — customizing toolbars & buttons
Anatomy of a Toolbar, Customizing the Toolbars’ Looks, Rearranging Toolbars, Dragging & Moving Toolbars, Toggling the Display of Toolbars, Modifying Toolbars, Creating New Toolbars, Adding Controls, Flyouts, and Separators, Adding Controls (Droplists), Adding Flyouts, Adding Separators, Removing Buttons, Renaming, and Deleting Toolbars, Removing Buttons and Toolbars, Renaming Toolbars and Buttons, Customizing Buttons, Modifying Button Parameters, Title and Help, Command, Anatomy of a Toolbar Button, Image.
Chapter 6 — customizing menus
Modifying the Menu Bar, Understanding Menu Title Conventions, Shortcut - &, Dialog Box - …, Editing Macros, Cancel - ^c, Transparent - ‘, Internationalize - _, Enter - ;, Pause - \, Editing the Help String, Adding Menu Items, Deleting Menu Items, Adding New Tools, Append vs Insert, Creating Context Menus, Sharing Menus, Importing AutoCAD Menus.
Chapter 7 — writing macros & diesel code
Single Command Macros, Accessing Macros in Bricscad, Transparent Macros, Dashed Commands, Command Options & User Input, Command Options, Pausing for User Input, Combining Options and Pauses, Other Control Keys, Menu-Specific Macros, Diesel Code, About Diesel, Toggling Checkmarks, Toggling Grayouts, Reporting Values of System Variables, Applying Sysvars Everywhere, Formatting Diesel, Formatting Numbers and Angles, Formatting Text, Variables in Diesel, Catalog of Diesel Functions, Math Functions, Logic Functions, Summary of Diesel Functions in Bricscad, Conversion Functions, String Functions, System Functions, Diesel Programming Tips, Debugging Diesel, ModeMacro: Displaying Text on the Status Bar.
Chapter 8 — creating keystroke shortcuts, aliases, & shell commands
New in Bricscad V8, Summary of Shortcut Keys, Defining Shortcut Keys, Editing & Deleting Keyboard Shortcuts, Assigning Multiple Commands, Command Aliases, Creating New Aliases, Editing & Deleting Aliases, Bricscad Aliases: Sorted by Alias Name, Bricscad Aliases: Sorted by Command Name, Alias Rules, Shell Commands, Editing Shell Commands.
Chapter 9 — simple & complex linetypes
Simple and Complex Linetypes, Commands Affecting Linetypes, System Variables Affecting Linetypes, The Special Case of Polylines, Compatibility with AutoCAD, Customizing Linetypes, At the Command Prompt, Testing the New Linetype, Creating Linetypes with Text Editors, Linetype Format (.lin), Line 1: Header, Line 2: Data, Complex (2D) Linetypes, Embedding Text in Linetypes, Text, Text Style, Text Scale, Text Rotation, Absolute, X and Y Offset, Linetypes Included with Bricscad V8, Contents of the default.lin File, Contents of the iso.lin File.
Chapter 10 — patterning hatches
Where Do Hatch Patterns Come From?, How Hatch Patterns Work, System Variables that Control Hatches, Compatibility with AutoCAD, Creating Custom Hatch Patterns, -Hatch Command, Hatch Command, Understanding the .pat Format, Comment and Header Lines, Comment, Start of Definition, Pattern Name, Description, The Hatch Data, Angle, xOrigin and yOrigin, xOffset and yOffset, Dash1,…, Adding Samples to the Hatch Palette, Tips on Creating Pattern Codes, Contents of the default.pat File.
Chapter 11 — decoding shapes & fonts
Fonts, Complex Linetypes, and Shapes, Fonts, About Fonts in Bricscad, Complex Linetypes, Shapes, GD&T, Shape Compatibility with AutoCAD, About Shape Files, The Shape File Format, Header Fields, Definition Start, shapeNumber, totalBytes, shapeName, Definition Lines, bytes, Vector Codes, Instruction Codes, End of Shape - 0/000, Draw Mode - 1/001, 2/002: Move Mode -, Reduced Scale - 3/003, Enlarged Scale - 4/004, Save (Push) - 5/005, Recall (Pop) - 6/006, Subshape - 7/007, X,y Distance - 8/008, X,y Distances - 9/009, Octant Arc - 10/00A, Fractional Arc - 11/ 00B, Bulge Arc - 12/00C, Polyarc - 13/00D, Flag Vertical Text Flag - 14/00E.
Chapter 12 — writing scripts
What are Scripts?, Drawbacks to Scripts, Strictly Command-Line Oriented, Script Commands and Modifiers, Script, RScript, Resume, Delay, Special Characters, Enter - (space), Comment - ;, Transparent - ‘, Pause - Backspace, Stop - esc, Recording Scripts.
Chapter 13 — lisp programming
The History of LISP in Bricscad, Compatibility between LISP and AutoLISP, Additional LISP Functions, Different LISP Functions, Missing AutoLISP Functions, The LISP Programming Language, Simple LISP: Adding Two Numbers, LISP in Commands, Remembering the Result: setq, LISP Function Overview, Math Functions, Geometric Functions, Distance Between Two Points, The Angle from 0 Degrees, The Intersection of Two Lines, Entity Snaps, Conditional Functions, Other Conditionals, String and Conversion Functions, Joining Strings of Text, Converting Between Text and Numbers, Other Conversion Functions, External Command Functions, Command Function Limitation, Accessing System Variables, GetXXX Functions, Selection Set Functions, Entity Manipulation Functions, Advanced LISP Functions, Writing a Simple LISP Program, Why Write a Program?, The Id Command, The Plan of Attack, Obtaining the Coordinates, Placing the Text, Putting It Together, Adding to the Simple LISP Program, Conquering Feature Bloat, Wishlist Item #1: Naming the Program, Defining the Function - defun, Naming the Function - C:, Local and Global Variables - /, Wishlist Item #2: Saving the Program, Wishlist Item #3: Automatically Loading the Program, Wishlist #4: Using Car and Cdr, Saving Data to Files, The Three Steps, Step 1: Open the File, Step 2: Write Data to the File, Step 3: Close the File, Putting It Together, Wishlist #5: Layers, Wishlist #6: Text Style, Tips in Using LISP, Tip #1. Use an ASCII Text Editor., Tip #2: Loading LSP Code into Bricscad, Tip #3: Toggling System Variables, Tip #4: Be Neat and Tidy., Tip #5: UPPER vs. lowercase, Tip # 6: Quotation Marks as Quotation Marks, Tip #7: Tabs and Quotation Marks.
Chapter 14 — dialog boxes with dcl
History of DCL, What Dialog Boxes Are Made Of, How DCL Operates, Your First DCL File, DCL Programming Structure, Start Dialog Box Definition, Dialog Box Title, OK Button, The Default Tile, Summary of DCL Metacharacters, LISP Code to Load and Run Dialog Boxes, Testing the DCL Code, Displaying System Variable Data, Adding the Complimentary LISP Code, Clustering Text, Supplying the Variable Text, Leaving Room for Variable Text, Fixing the Button Width, Centering the Button, Testing the Dialog Box, Defining the Command, Examples of DCL Coding, Buttons, Making Buttons Work, Check Boxes, Radio Buttons, Clusters, Columns and Rows, Boxed Row, Boxed Row with Label, Special Tiles for Radio Buttons, Debugging DCL, Dcl_Settings, DCL Error Messages, Semantic error(s) is DCL file, Dialog has neither an OK nor a CANCEL button, Error in dialog file “filename.dcl”, line n, Dialog too large to fit on screen, Additional Resources.
Chapter 14 — dabbling in vba
Introduction to VBA, Format of VBA Programs, Accessing VBA Programs, Embedded or External, Sending Commands, Writing and Running VBA Routines, Displaying Messages, Constructing Dialog Boxes, Object Orientation, Object Browser, Bricscad V8 Object Model (Preliminary), Line Entity, Properties, Methods, Events, Dialog Box with Code, Designing the Dialog Box, Adding the Code, Clicking Cancel, LastInput.Dvb, Conversion Routines, PointToString Conversion Function, VBA Data Types, VBA Variable Declarations, VBA Predefined Constants, sPt = StringFromValueFixedDecimal(vIn(0), iPrecision) & “, “, VBA Shortcut References, VBA Data Type Return Values, PointToString = sPt, StringToPoint Conversion Function, VBA String Manipulation, tmpPt(0) = Val(sCoords(0)), Loading and Running LastInput.Dvb.
Appendices
a — understanding dxf
References, Introduction, DXF Format, Group Codes.
b — dcl reference
Alphabetical Summary of DCL Tiles, Alphabetical Summary of DCL Attributes, Tile Reference, Base.Dcl, LISP Functions for Dialog Boxes.
c — concise lisp reference
LISP Function Summary, VLisp (VL) Function Summary,
VLISP-ActiveX (VLAX) Function Summary,
VLISP (VLR) Reactor Function Summary.
About the author:
Ralph Grabowski has authored and coauthored 80+ books on CAD management, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD, Generic CADD, IntelliCAD, MicroStation, TurboCAD, VDraft, Visio, HTML, and VRML. He is the editor of two e-newsletters, upFront.eZine and IMAGINiT.eZine, and maintains a Weblog.
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