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table of contents for V11 edition
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 — concise system variable reference
b — concise 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 co-authored 140+ books and ebooks on CAD management, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD,
Generic CADD, IntelliCAD, MicroStation, TurboCAD,
VDraft, Visio, HTML, and VRML.
Mr Grabowski received
his B.A.Sc ('80) degree in civil engineering from the University
of British Columbia. He currently works and lives in the beautiful
Central Fraser Valley region of British Columbia, Canada.
You can visit his
Web site at www.upfrontezine.com .