Running app on Acad startup

Hi group:
I am trying to write a simple application in VB6 to log autocad drawings
being opened in the journal in Outlook similar to how it logs office
documents. Creating a journal entry in outlook is no problem. The problem is
accessing the autocad object on autocad start up. I have been placing a
(startapp "myapp") line in the acad2000.lsp or acad2000doc.lsp file to start
the application. This works fine but the line
Set ACApp = GetObject(, "Autocad.Application")
throws an error. Seems the acad object is not available yet. If autocad is
already open, it works fine on subsequently opened files. If I place a line
MsgBox "Starting Drawing Log program"
it doesn't throw an error, seems the message box releases control long
enough for acad to finish loading. I've run into this problem before trying
to get an application to run on acad start up. Does anyone have any ideas on
this topic? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

To do that wouldn't the vba routine have to be embedded in every drawing the
user might open?
I thought about a VBA solution, placing the routine in the drawing template,
but I want the application to work on any drawing, even ones sent to us by
other offices and need no interaction from the user. Also, I find VBA buggy
and not as powerful then VB.
This problem has been a real stumbling block for me. There are a number of
things I would like to be able to do programically upon autocad start up.

 

To get code to work on startup of acad, create a new project and name the
file "acad.dvb". Then in a public module, create a public sub called
"AcadStartup" and place your code there. You can do things directly there,
load other dvb's or call other procedures, etc.

 

Hi Andrew,

Why not write your Application in VBA and have it respond to the finish
event of open drawing ?

--


Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

 

In addition, you can always cobble together a small LISP routine to
create an instance of your application then add the LISP routine to your
startup suite. I prefer this method since it avoids collisions. If the
end user already has an acad.dvb, they'd have toedit it in order to get
your application going.

--
There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who
don't.

http://code.acadx.com
(Pull the pin to reply)

 

If that does not work you can always initialize the vb dll with an event
trigger. Enter and mouse click It works pretty well in 2000-2002.


The acad.dvb will autoload, but I try and stay away from files like that
because it's the easy way to force a file to load and everybody uses those
files and conflicts are frequent. but either way I do not think it will fix
your particular problem.

Dave

 

As for the other part of your problem,
If your app is in vba, the application object will be accessible.
If your app is in vb, create a Application property. Then, as Frank noted,
when you start your app in lisp, use (vlax-get-acad-object) to set your
app's Application property.