Intellicad by R a L P H G R a B O W S K I
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tailoring IntelliCAD by r a l p h g r a b o w s k i u p f r o n t . e z i n e p u b l i s h i n g , l t d . ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Tailoring IntelliCAD introduction •1 Copyright & Payment Information This book is covered by copyright. As the owner of the copyright, upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. does not give you permission to make electronic or print copies. You may not claim authorship or ownership of the text or figures herein. To support the work of the author, you can make a payment of: On CD in Acrobat PDF format: US$24.95 (incl. shipping). Allow 1-2 weeks to arrive. By email in PkZIP/Acrobat PDF format: US$19.95. Allow for a 1.5-3.5MB download. The CD is normally delivered by mail, with shipping cost included. Delivery by FedEx: add US$18 - CDN$25 - £10. Check or Money Order • US funds drawn on a bank with its address in the USA (US$19.95 - $24.95). • Canadian funds drawn on a bank with a Canadian address (CDN$27.95 - $34.95 incl. 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All rights reserved worldwide. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 2•v1.0 31 december 2002 table of contents t a i l o r i n g I n t e l l i C A D introduction . .13 The Many Ways to Customizing . .14 Which Customization? . .14 The History of IntelliCAD . .15 Visio Acquires IntelliCAD . .15 IntelliCAD Goes Free, Sort Of . .16 The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium . .18 Tips for IntelliCAD Users . .19 User Interface . .19 Command Bar . .19 Changing the Prompt Text . .19 Prompt Box . .20 Realtime Pan and Zoom . .20 User Interface Elements . .20 Skill Levels . .21 Background Color . .21 Drawing and Editing . .22 Quick Changes to Properties . .22 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Tailoring IntelliCAD introduction •3 Copying Entities Between Drawings . .23 Drag and Drop Launching . .23 Drawing from the Last Entity . .23 Previewing Blocks . .24 On-the-fly Ortho Drawing . .24 Special Polyline Operations . .24 Bisecting . .25 Exploding Objects . .25 Arcs to Circles . .25 Lines and Arcs . .25 Hatch Style . .25 Sketch Editing . .25 Set Layer Current . .25 Miscellaneous . .26 Automatic Script Recording . .26 Sources of Help . .26 1. customizing the environment . .27 Starting IntelliCAD . .29 Command Line Options . .29 /b Switch . .30 Changing Colors . .31 Background Color . .31 Cursor Color . .32 Support File Paths . .33 Search Path Options . .34 Drawings . .34 Fonts . .34 Help . .34 Xrefs . .34 Menus . .34 Hatch Patterns . .34 Blocks . .34 Default System File Names . .34 Log File . .34 Template . .34 Alternate Font . .35 Font Mapping . .35 Fly-over Snapping . .35 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 4•v1.0 31 december 2002 2. keystroke shortcuts & aliases . .37 Shortcut Keys . .39 Defining Shortcut Keys . .40 Editing & Deleting Keyboard Shortcuts . .41 Assigning Multiple Commands . .42 Command Aliases . .43 Creating a New Alias . .44 Editing & Deleting Aliases . .44 Alias Rules . .45 Sharing Shortcuts . .46 Exporting Shortcuts . .46 Importing Shortcuts . .47 File Formats . .48 Keystroke Shortcuts - .ick . .48 nAccelKeys . .48 Command . .48 Accel . .48 Aliases - .ica . .50 nAliases . .50 Alias . .50 LocalCommand and GlobalCommand . .50 3. toolbars & macros . .51 Customizing the Toolbar Look . .53 Rearranging Toolbars . .53 Dragging & Moving Toolbars . .53 Toggling the Display of Toolbars . .55 Creating a New Toolbar . .56 Renaming Toolbars . .57 Changing Button Size, Color, and Tooltips . .57 Writing Toolbar Macros . .59 Simple Macros . .60 Intermediate Macros . .60 Toolbar Macros Are No Panacea . .61 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Tailoring IntelliCAD introduction •5 Sharing Toolbars . .62 Saving Toolbars . .62 Importing Toolbars . .63 .mnu File Format . .64 General Format . .64 Toolbar Format . .65 ***TOOLBARS . .65 **name . .65 TBAR_name . .65 _Toolbar . .65 "titleBar" . .65 defaultPosition . .65 defaultVisibility . .65 xCoord and yCoord . .65 rows . .66 Button Format . .66 ID_cmdName . .66 _Button . .66 cmdName . .66 smallIcon . .66 largeIcon . .66 macro . .66 Flyout Button Format . .66 _Flyout . .66 _otherIcon . .66 TBAR_name . .67 Help String Format . .67 ***HELPSTRINGS . .67 TBAR_name [name] . .67 ID_cmdName . .67 [helpString] . .67 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 6•v1.0 31 december 2002 4. customizing menus . .69 Modifying the Menu Bar . .71 Editing the Name . .72 Underline - & . .72 Dialog Box - . .72 Tab Separator - \t . .72 New... and Ctrl+N . .73 Editing the Macro . .73 Cancel - ^C . .73 Transparent - ' . .73 Internationalize - _ . .73 Enter - ; . .73 Pause - \ . .74 Editing the Help String . .74 Changing Options . .75 Experience Level . .75 MDI Window . .76 ActiveX In-Place Activation . .76 Checked-State and Grayed-Stated Variables . .77 Value - & . .77 Not - ! . .77 Context Menu Entity Availability . .78 Miscellaneous . .78 Adding New Menu Items . .79 Deleting a Menu Item . .80 Sharing Menus . .81 Importing AutoCAD Menus . .81 Menu File Format . .82 nMenuItems . .82 Name . .82 Alt-Shortcut - & . .82 Dialog Box - . .82 Right-Justified - \t . .83 TearOffName . .83 Command . .83 Cancel - ^C . .83 Internationalize - _ . .84 Enter - ; . .84 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Tailoring IntelliCAD introduction •7 Pause - \ . .84 Visibility . .84 Experience Level . .85 MDI Window . .85 ActiveX In-Place Activation . .85 Other . .85 HelpString . .85 SubLevel . .86 AddSpacerBefore . .86 EntityVisibility . .86 ChekVar . .87 GrayVar . .88 Value - & . .88 Not - ! . .88 5. linetypes . .89 Commands Affecting Linetypes . .91 System Variables that Affect Linetypes . .91 The Special Case of Polylines . .91 Compatibility with AutoCAD . .91 Customizing Linetypes . .92 IntelliCAD Explorer . .92 Editing the Linetype Definition . .93 Deleting Linetype Definitions . .95 At the Command Prompt . .96 Testing the New Linetype . .97 Creating Linetypes with Text Editors . .98 The Linetype Format . .98 Line1: Header . .98 Line 2: Data . .98 Complex (2D) Linetypes . .99 Embedding Text . .99 Text - "HW" . .99 Text Style - STANDARD . .99 Text Scale - S=.1 . .99 Text Rotation - R=0.0 . .99 Absolute - A=0.0 . .100 X Offset - X=0.1 . .100 Y Offset - Y=0.05 . .100 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 8•v1.0 31 december 2002 Embedding Shapes . .100 Shape Name - SSS . .100 Shape File - ltypeshp.shx . .100 6. hatch patterns . .101 Where Do Hatch Patterns Come From? . .103 Creating Custom Hatch Patterns . .104 Hatch Command . .104 BHatch Command . .105 Understanding the icad.pat File . .106 Comment and Header Lines . .106 Comment - ; . .106 Start of Definition - * . .106 Pattern Name . .106 Description . .106 The Hatch Data . .107 angle . .107 xOrigin and yOrigin . .107 xOffset and yOffset . .107 dash1,... .107 Tips on Creating Pattern Codes . .108 Adding Custom Patterns to the Palette . .110 Creating a Sample Hatch Pattern . .110 Creating the Slide . .111 Hatch Pattern Samples . .112 Standard Hatch Patterns . .113 ISO Hatch Patterns . .114 7. shapes & fonts . .115 About Shape Files . .117 Font Compatibility with AutoCAD . .117 The Shape File Format . .118 Header Fields . .118 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Tailoring IntelliCAD introduction •9 Definition Start - * . .118 shapeNumber . .118 totalBytes . .118 shapeName . .118 Definition Lines . .119 bytes . .119 Vector Codes . .119 Instruction Codes . .120 End of Shape - 0/000 . .121 Draw Mode - 1/001 . .121 2/002: Move Mode - . .121 Reduced Scale - 3/003 . .121 Enlarged Scale - 4/004 . .121 Save (Push) - 5/005 . .121 Recall (Pop) - 6/006 . .121 Subshape - 7/007 . .122 X,y Distance - 8/008 . .122 X,y Distances - 9/009 . .122 Octant Arc - 10/00A . .122 Fractional Arc - 11/ 00B . .123 Bulge Arc - 12/00C . .123 Polyarc - 13/00D . .124 Flag Vertical Text Flag - 14/00E . .124 8. script files . .125 What are Scripts? . .125 Drawbacks to Scripts . .127 Strictly Command-Line Oriented . .127 Script Commands and Modifiers . .128 Script . .128 RScript . .128 Resume . .128 Delay . .128 Special Characters . .129 Enter - (space) . .129 Comment - ; . .129 Transparent - ' . .129 Pause - Backspace . .129 Stop - Esc . .129 Recording Scripts . .130 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 10 • v1.0 31 december 2002 9. lisp programming . .131 The History of LISP in IntelliCAD . .131 Compatibility between LISP and AutoLISP . .133 Additional LISP Functions . .133 Different LISP Functions . .133 Missing AutoLISP Functions . .133 The LISP Programming Language . .134 Simple LISP: Adding Two Numbers . .134 LISP in Commands . .136 Remembering the Result: setq . .136 LISP Function Overview . .138 Math Functions . .138 Geometric Functions . .139 Distance Between Two Points . .139 The Angle from 0 Degrees . .139 The Intersection of Two Lines . .139 Entity Snaps . .139 Conditional Functions . .140 Other Conditionals . .140 String and Conversion Functions . .140 Joining Strings of Text . .141 Converting Between Text and Numbers . .141 Other