Accessing Document History from VBA

Well I solved my previous post (see that thread) by myself. Thanx a lot
guys. However, I have a new one. I can successfully change profiles based on
the active drawing for every case I can think of except closing one of the
active drawings. I can get around it by manually inputting the profile to
use but that kind of defeats the purpose. Once again, the problem is a
timing issue. All of the events triggered by a closing drawing happen too
early to start executing code on another drawing without knowing which item
in the DocumentsCollection that drawing is going to be. IE ThisDrawing and
ActiveDocument may or may not point to the right place.
The obvious solution to me is to just borrow AutoCAD's information on
what the previously active document was and correlate that with the
documents collection. However, I have absolutely no idea where AutoCAD is
storing that value. It has to have it, because it doesn't just go the the
last document in the collection, it remembers the exact order you went
through the open documents, but I can't find it anywhere. Anyway, anyone
have any idea how to find this value?

 

You can iterate through the documents collection without ever using
ActiveDocument - just store the information about all open documents in an
array or collection (either just the name or the doc itself).

Application.Documents.Item(?)

Kevin

 

Kevin,
Yeah I know I can get a list of the documents but the problem is the
order they were accessed. I know it's a little picky, but I want AutoCAD to
go back to the last drawing accessed before the current drawing was closed.
That's the default, but for me to set the profile based on that drawing I
need to know what that drawing is either by name or ID. I can randomly pick
a drawing out of the documents collection and set it active, but it would
break the default AutoCAD history behavior that I kind of like.
I started trying to create an array that updated as drawings were
activated, but it was becoming twice as long as the rest of my program
because of all the ways that documents can be opened, activated, and closed.
Plus, unless I'm missing something, re-ordering an array isn't the simplest
operation in the world. I keep coming back to the fact that AutoCAD knows
the last drawing so it has to be stored somewhere. I'm afraid it may be some
time of Windows operation.

Jarod

 

Thanks to Ed and Kevin but neither response was what I was looking for. The
documents collection just gave me all the documents including the one being
closed, and the recent document list just tells me the most recently
"opened" not "activated" drawings.
It turns out it was a windows API call I was looking for, the code is below.

Declare Function GetNextWindow Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindow" (ByVal hwnd As
Long, ByVal wFlag As Long) As Long

'The next lines are placed in the document_beginclose event
'This line gets the windows handle for the document being closed
strActiveDocument = ActiveDocument.hwnd
'This line changes the handle to the last active window
strActiveDocument = GetNextWindow(ActiveDocument.hwnd, 2)

Now you can compare the items in the document collection to the window
handle for the previously active document and get whatever information you
need.

 

You can use the win api, but its better to stick with the object model
you're working with. If you upgrade the os, the api can change. Try this:

'Declarations
Private oCurDoc As AcadDocument
Private oPrevDoc As AcadDocument

Private Sub Doc_Activate()
If oCurDoc Is Nothing Then
'the first time a dwg is opened, cur & prev are the same
Set oCurDoc = AcadApplication.Documents(ThisDrawing.Name)
Set oPrevDoc = oCurDoc
Else
Set oPrevDoc = oCurDoc
Set oCurDoc = AcadApplication.Documents(ThisDrawing.Name)
End If
MsgBox oPrevDoc.Name

End Sub

 

I agree with your concerns about the API. However, if I follow the logic
correctly with the code below, it is only good for closing one drawing. If
you have three open drawings, closing the first one will be OK, but then the
value of OPrevDoc is the drawing you just closed and it is no longer
available. I started down this path but trying to track an unspecified
number of open drawings and adjusting for closing some of them ends up being
more than I was willing to tackle. I could be missing something and making
this more complicated then it really is.

Jarod

 

Did you try it. It worked for me. I designed it only as a quick example of
tracking while switching between dwgs, which also works when opening them.
You will have to add to it to account for closing dwgs. Its quittin' time.
I'll look at it again tomorrow if I get the chance.

 

This has been an interesting thread, but one question I haven't seen asked
is: Why are you changing profiles for each drawing? Isn't there a tree in
this forest you might be missing?

--
R. Robert Bell, MCSE
www.AcadX.com


| Did you try it. It worked for me. I designed it only as a quick example of
| tracking while switching between dwgs, which also works when opening them.
| You will have to add to it to account for closing dwgs. Its quittin' time.
| I'll look at it again tomorrow if I get the chance.
|
| --
| Ed
| --
|
| | > I agree with your concerns about the API. However, if I follow the logic
| > correctly with the code below, it is only good for closing one drawing.
If
| > you have three open drawings, closing the first one will be OK, but then
| the
| > value of OPrevDoc is the drawing you just closed and it is no longer
| > available. I started down this path but trying to track an unspecified
| > number of open drawings and adjusting for closing some of them ends up
| being
| > more than I was willing to tackle. I could be missing something and
making
| > this more complicated then it really is.
| >
| > Jarod
| >
| > | > > You can use the win api, but its better to stick with the object model
| > > you're working with. If you upgrade the os, the api can change. Try
| this:
| > >
| > > 'Declarations
| > > Private oCurDoc As AcadDocument
| > > Private oPrevDoc As AcadDocument
| > >
| > > Private Sub Doc_Activate()
| > > If oCurDoc Is Nothing Then
| > > 'the first time a dwg is opened, cur & prev are the same
| > > Set oCurDoc = AcadApplication.Documents(ThisDrawing.Name)
| > > Set oPrevDoc = oCurDoc
| > > Else
| > > Set oPrevDoc = oCurDoc
| > > Set oCurDoc = AcadApplication.Documents(ThisDrawing.Name)
| > > End If
| > > MsgBox oPrevDoc.Name
| > >
| > > End Sub
| > >
| > > --
| > > Ed
| >
| >
|
|

 

I don't need to change the profile for every drawing but we do
consulting work for dozens of clients and rather then have everybody try and
remember the settings for each client, we have a massive set of LISP
routines that automate as much as possible. Each client has a profile with
the appropriate paths to data and templates for that client. In the past
each user had 12-20 icons for AutoCAD, one for each client they work with.
If they wanted to start a drawing for a specific client they had to start
AutoCAD using that profile or manually change the active profile. Now, by
creating a dictionary in each drawing with settings for our company I can
"assign" a client profile to each drawing and change the AutoCAD profile to
match. This turns out being better then keeping client info in the drawing
because I can update the info for every drawing from a central source on the
network. Also, with AutoCAD's MDI interface a drafter can work with drawings
from multiple clients without having multiple instances of AutoCAD open.
If there is a better way of doing this, I'm open to suggestions. I
probably will not be able to convince my company to change but anything that
I can learn from is good.

 

Robert,
I believe he's looking for the document that was active before this one, but
not until the event of closing this one is fired. The way I see it though,
is this could be saved to the registry at exactly the moment you've captured
here. Then when thisdrawing is closed, lastdrawing could be pulled from the
registry for appropriate profile activation.

Jarod, I guess if you're happy with your API call then I wouldn't change
anything, but if you're still interested in a solution that is platform
independent, then look into storing the previous document's name in the
registry.

Another idea I had on the subject is to store the profile name within the
document itself - this to me might be the most reliable method of all - then
as each document is activated the profile name is pulled (from dictionary,
extended data, user variable, etc) and the profile activated.

HTH,
Kevin

 

You missed by point. Who cares what the prior document was? By sinking the
Activate event, when you close the current document, the last one goes
active, and the profile may be reapplied. I only used a MsgBox for
simplicity, but the concept is proven.


--
R. Robert Bell, MCSE
www.AcadX.com


| Robert,
| I believe he's looking for the document that was active before this one,
but
| not until the event of closing this one is fired. The way I see it though,
| is this could be saved to the registry at exactly the moment you've
captured
| here. Then when thisdrawing is closed, lastdrawing could be pulled from
the
| registry for appropriate profile activation.
|
| Jarod, I guess if you're happy with your API call then I wouldn't change
| anything, but if you're still interested in a solution that is platform
| independent, then look into storing the previous document's name in the
| registry.
|
| Another idea I had on the subject is to store the profile name within the
| document itself - this to me might be the most reliable method of all -
then
| as each document is activated the profile name is pulled (from dictionary,
| extended data, user variable, etc) and the profile activated.
|
| HTH,
| Kevin
|
| | > Ok, I can understand that.
| >
| > Mind you, I haven't followed this thread carefully, but what is wrong
with
| > this approach (in VBA)?
| >
| >
| > Private Sub AcadDocument_Activate()
| > Dim DocName As String
| > DocName = ThisDrawing.Name
| > MsgBox DocName
| > End Sub
| >
| >
| > --
| > R. Robert Bell, MCSE
| > www.AcadX.com
| >
| >
| > | > | I don't need to change the profile for every drawing but we do
| > | consulting work for dozens of clients and rather then have everybody
try
| > and
| > | remember the settings for each client, we have a massive set of LISP
| > | routines that automate as much as possible. Each client has a profile
| with
| > | the appropriate paths to data and templates for that client. In the
past
| > | each user had 12-20 icons for AutoCAD, one for each client they work
| with.
| > | If they wanted to start a drawing for a specific client they had to
| start
| > | AutoCAD using that profile or manually change the active profile. Now,
| by
| > | creating a dictionary in each drawing with settings for our company I
| can
| > | "assign" a client profile to each drawing and change the AutoCAD
profile
| > to
| > | match. This turns out being better then keeping client info in the
| drawing
| > | because I can update the info for every drawing from a central source
on
| > the
| > | network. Also, with AutoCAD's MDI interface a drafter can work with
| > drawings
| > | from multiple clients without having multiple instances of AutoCAD
open.
| > | If there is a better way of doing this, I'm open to suggestions. I
| > | probably will not be able to convince my company to change but
anything
| > that
| > | I can learn from is good.
| > |