ACAD Command Stack question

Dear All,

Here's a nifty problem that keeps me away from using VBA SendCommand and
it's API surrogates for a while. All other technical problems aside (like
it's asynchronous properties), the major drawback is the one that's obvious
to the user:

1) There is a menu option that fires certain VBA macro - let's call that Sub
module "Macro1"
2) When Macro1 subroutine gets started, it performs some calculations and
executes SendCommand ".Zoom"
3) User wants to repeat the last command picked from the menu (Module1)
using his/her right mouse button or whatever he/she's used to...
4) And, oh, the command stack says "Yeah, forget the Macro1, the last issued
command was ZOOM"

Is there a way to fill the command stack with certain command, without
actually firing that command? What's the location of that stack (I guess
it's saved in memory only, no registry entries affected) and are there any
means to change it? Is there a possible workaround?

Regards and Happy New Year to all,
Maksim Sestic

 

Hi Malcolm,

An approach to this problem is to define AutoCAD commands with lisp to run
your macros.
With things like zooming you should use the APIs rather than SendCommand.
This combination will allow you to repeat.

Below is an extract of the CADApps LandToolbox.MNL file which shows a way of
doing this.

"CA_DuplicatePoints" is the defined command which can be run from the
command line, pop menu or a toolbar. As it is a command it will be placed
in the used commands register and can be repeated by pressing <Enter>

Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au


;//
;// AutoCAD menu file - C:\Program Files\Land Desktop
3\Support\LandToolbox.mnl
;//
;// 7 Jun 2003 Modified to hide data other than the menu command itself

(setq sLandToolboxPath
(strcat
(vl-registry-read
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\CADApps\\LandToolbox" "VBA Program Path")
"\\"
)
)

(setq sLandToolboxHelpPath
(vl-registry-read
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\CADApps\\LandToolbox" "Help Path")
)

(defun CADApps_BlankCommandLine (spString)
(setq n (strlen spString))
(repeat n(prompt(chr 8)))
(repeat n(prompt(chr 32)))
(princ)
) ; CADApps_BlankCommandLine

(defun C:CA_LandToolBoxHelp ()
(Command "Browser" (strcat sLandToolboxHelpPath "\\LT_HelpIndex.htm"))
(CADApps_BlankCommandLine (strcat sLandToolboxHelpPath
"\\LT_HelpIndex.htm"))
) ; end Defun CA_LandToolBoxHelp


(defun C:CA_DuplicatePoints ()
(setq sLandToolboxFunction (strcat sLandToolboxPath
"CADApps_DuplicatePointsL3.dvb!DuplicatePoints"))
(vl-vbarun sLandToolboxFunction)
(CADApps_BlankCommandLine sLandToolboxFunction)

) ; end Defun CA_DuplicatePoints

<snip>

 

Laurie,

Thanks for the tip. The thing is that I'm primarily using VBA, having to
execute VBA SendCommand only there where AutoCAD doesn't have it's functions
exposed via object model. Here's the operations flowchart:

(1) Run VBA Macro named "MACRO1"
(2) Run SendCommand "-boundary ... ... ..." via MACRO1
(3) Continue execution of MACRO1...
(4) End MACRO1

If user repeats the last command issued, it will be rather "-boundary" than
"MACRO1".
The question is - how do I trick the ACAD command stack?

Thanks,
Maksim Sestic

 

As Laurie correctly stated, your command stack should be:
(1) Run VBA Macro named "MACRO1" *VIA AUTOLISP WRAPPER*
(2) Run SendCommand "-boundary ... ... ..." via MACRO1
(3) Continue execution of MACRO1...
(4) End MACRO1
(5) User now has access to Macro1 as the last command

 

AutoCAD is being fed the -BOUNDARY command
after your VBA macro is run, so that means
its the last command entered.

I'm afraid there's no way to solve that
problem other than by using AcadX.arx

 

Ed, what I'm really stuck is -Boundary command, the Zoom example was just to
make things more clear.

Thanks,
Maksim Sestic

Don't use SendCommand, use one of the Zoom methods of the AcadApplication
object.