forum.datacad.com

In designing a program, I have two questions (for the moment)

1. Is it, could it be possible in this extended DCAL / Delphi environment to open and close Datacad drawing files without closing the macro program? I have been working on a program that would be much more functional if it could automatically work across several drawings without the need of the owner to manually change drawings.
2. Can/Could a DCAL macro program be made persistent to monitor the users activities and participate when user actions affecting the program’s function? The user could continue working in their document including use of macros without Datacad having to exit this persistent program.

Thanks

3. I am looking for a way to generate parametric drawings from User input and have been exploring the use of polylines, since the drawing requirements are for lines and arcs only. It appears that polyverts do not have a visiblity switch, so it is not possible to create visible gaps in the polyline. Are there any workarounds or undocumented capabilites here? I would consider symbols, but unfortunately they do not allow the flexibility for modification at the individual level that I require.

I'd contact Datacad directly about v.12's abilities and see what they recommend, and what work they already have done in this field. Maybe you'll light some fires, I hope

4. DCAL does not implement any XRef management routines. The ability to manage import of an xref and defining various display settings is currently missing, but would be very valuable addition

5. Monitoring user actions. Several Macros I am working on create standard DataCad drawing entities that contain additional information through attributes. If the user deletes, moves or modifies them, it would require action by the macro to manage their use. This is not possible now because the macro cannot stay resident and there is no messaging system or other means to monitor the users actions to determine when intervention is needed. OOPS - very similar to item 2 in a previous post. Sorry, but it appears the same need popped up again while I was working on another problem.

6. In exploring the Unit interface files attached to the DCAL sample macros created using Delphi, I have noticed a number of small changes made to accomodate differences between the Delphi complier and the old DCC compiler. These changes are not (ahem) well documented.

7. Datacad's text capabilities were significantly increased when truetype font management was added. If my memory serves me right, it appears that several additional fields were added to Text entity records, presumably to manage the additional capabilites. Are these fields and the management of the new text display capabilities documented anywhere, even informally? Similarly, other features such as bitmaps as drawing entities and solid shade areas as hatching using polylines have been added, with new record fields but little information.

There was supposed to be an updated DCAL for Delphi manual in the works for sometime now, but nothing has surfaced. Maybe they can send you what they have got so far since your putting some real time into the program now.

Questions -> Answers
1,2 : Currently No.
DLL is launched by command stack, which only works when a drawing is opened. The DLL then attaches with this drawing window and works only in current drawing window.
3 : Currently No.
This might be done for ver 12.
4 : No direct support but you have access to everything.
The entity record defines the x-ref entity and nesting/hilighting/On-Layers are attributes to the X-Ref, so you can query attributes of an entity.
5. Currently No.
6. No comments.
7. Similar concept like X-Ref. Entity definition and attributes hold the Data.