Topic Title

Congratulations...you can copy/paste from Wikipedia.
Do you actually have something to contribute or a question about DataCAD?
If not, move on.

It's probably still a spam bot which auto replies. Lets see if it will reply again with the same reply, or a new secondary reply Too bad spambots are not like the Surrogates

Sorry V.G. if your really a person. It's just we have a short patience for spammers around here. Your choice of the user name Guest, your first post and your second posting (before your edit) of a clip out of wikipedia on spambots with no other explanation was VERY, VERY spambot like. So please forgive us for doubting your humanity but the odds were pointing in that direction. You last post would have been a much better reply. Once again, sorry if we offended you. Hopefully you can understand the misunderstanding. We thought we were having a bit of harmless fun with what we thought was a malicious bot. It's never been our intention to treat a person that way. If you've spent any time on the forum hopefully you would know we are usually super helpful and friendly. Sincerely, the forum's Foot-In-Mouth members.

To be fair, VG, most people are a little more forthcoming and less cryptic than your posts have been.

There is no activity on DDN because there really seems to be no interest in 3rd party development of add-ons for DataCAD.

Actually, I have had a great deal of interest, as have a number of people over time. There are a number of obstacles preventing serious development.

1. Delphi is a serious challenge for anyone to master who does not have a very strong programming background. I have invested a great deal of time both learning the language and the science of programming, mostly as a hobby and personal interest, although I do use Delphi for other work in my office. Over the years I have developed many mini applications to handle tasks within Datacad using DCAL. DCAl, however is quite limited and I needed the power of Delphi to develop more complex solutions. Since Dcal for Delphi came along, I have used moved steadily towards using its power. It is, however, a time consuming task. Delphi does not provide much support and education for beginners and many of the text books I have used to learn it are not even in print any longer ( I seek out old texts for old versions to learn from).

2. Since it has a high learning curve, it is difficult for someone who is a user to learn the language even for use in small applications. Conversely, a serious programmer has little understanding of how users actually use cadd and is not likely to hit upon "killer apps" that could sell well.

3. The Cadd market, using Datacad is very small and the program is not aimed at power users who might have more need for advanced features. The questions for a developer then are what to write and if he/she writes it, will they buy it especially when it must be priced higher because of the low volume of sales.

4. The body of information published with DCAl for Delphi is very poor. A couple declaration files giving names & calls for Datacad calls, and one or two very poorly written examples. Considering the capabilities of Delphi, there is a great deal more that could be offered to make the software user friendly. Delphi is a graphic language and allows dropping custom components on the program window to add features, without any code. At the very least, Datacad, could provide components to create the interface, assemble menus, work with distances, angle and other user input in forms.

5. Datacad has introduced a lot of new entity types since its last revision of DCAl in the 90's(?). None of these new types are discussed at all in their DCAl manual. New features such as Xrefs are not documented and Smartwalls etc. are not accessible (or expandable) at all.

5. Support from Datacad for anyone attempting to develop in the language is terrible. I have been monitoring this site for 2 years, have watched others make valiant attempts to develop in DCAL and get little, if any, support. Some of you may remember Pietro from last year who worked hard for quite a while to generate interest. He even wrote an extensive language guide. His early work discovered that the original publication of the language was inaccurate, untested, and unusable. The version in Datacad 10/11 did not work. Apparently he was the first person to actually test the various functions and find the many errors. While writing his guide, he had frequent questions regarding the interface between the macros and Datacad and was often frustrated because of the lack of any response. Either no-one at Datacad really monitors the site, or no-one is assigned or authorized to offer support.

I have enjoyed learning the language and have a number of ideas I would like to see brought forward, but it will take a lot of time and with so little support and information from Datacad, I have been reluctant to make any substantial commitment. Frankly, I wonder why they have offered DCAD for Delphi at all considering how little they actually have done to promote it.

I'm sorry for this lengthy rant, its late on a Friday and I am tired and a bit cranky. The previous post just touched off a little of my frustration.

...I wonder why they have offered DCAD for Delphi at all considering how little they actually have done to promote it.

Me too.

It would be nice to have a word from Dave or MFM.

The previous post just touched off a little of my frustration.

I don't understand why...did I say something untrue?
I meant no offense to any person at all.
I do remember Pietro, too.
I have posted in here before with ideas for 3rd party add-ons that I would be willing to pay money for, but nothing ever came of it.
The lack of support for add-ons coupled with the lengthy revision cycle of DataCAD is frustrating, to be sure.

I have no working knowledge of programming (it makes my head hurt), but...
I am curious if the number of available add-ons for programs like ArchiCAD is what allows them to re-write their program to be multi-core threaded last year and this year it was re-written to be a 64-bit program?
They are able to concentrate on the core of the product while others provide specific goodies?
Again, just curious...

I'm sorry, it wasn't you. It is just that when you stated there was no activity, it reminds me of the lost opportunities. I think that there is much more that could be done, but not without leadership from Datacad. I think the company vision is weak. It is good at what it does, but will soon wake up and find that the world has moved on. At first Dcal for Delphi seemed like an attempt to grow and change, but it apparently has learned little since its early days as Microtecture. They called it Datacad and yet most of its data functions are useless and hopelessly outdated. While it explores parametric drawing (smart entities) it ignores the growth of Building Information Management (BIM). Within twenty years, the way we design and build will change radically. But it does not look like they are looking and listening.

Enough. Thanks for lending an ear.

No, but that is not uncommon. They do monitor and respond from time to time, but there is no dialog.

BTW which OU are you?

I am pleased that there are users still interested in DCAL. The old DCAL classic has a good manual (I found it to be useful). Dcal for Delphi suffered from the lack of an informative manual. The other great advantage of the old DCAL is the price FREE.
Lazarus opensource IDE for PASCAL looks a promising alternative to Delphi; but I have not had time to try it with DCAL for Delphi yet.

Rod Walker

I mentioned earlier some work by Pietro. He had written a book on the DCAL for Delphi interface, I don't know if it is still for sale though. Check the store on this site.

Delphi adds some incredible power to DCAL, but it is difficult to learn, both because it is so much larger, and because it has not been kept updated well. To learn it, you must refer to a lot of reference material that is no longer in print. You can find a lot at amazon. The other problem is that Datacad did not spend a lot of time upgrading the interface. Many of the the original DCAL routines are still there, but little has been done since mid 90's to upgrade DCAL and it does not address many of the later entity types. You will not find anything describing how to work with images, xrefs, or the new smart objects.

Too bad because Delphi has some real power and with better access or linking tools to DataCAD it could lead to some incredible extensions.

to OUStudent,

No reason other than curiosity. Ohio has an OU, but no architectural school. I wondered what you were studying and how Datacad related. I have not heard of it used in a school.

Ohio has an OU, but no architectural school

It used to. It closed in 1974, I graduated in 1972 ... possibly one of the reasons it was closed.

It must be a heavy burden believing you brought down the entire institution!!!!! I graduated Miami in '74

That was back in the day when "cad" meant someone who took advantage of an innocent young .....

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