Rubber Stamp
Program
VBA Preview in IntelliCAD 98
Frank Zander
VBA has fired the
curiosity of many IntelliCAD users. In Part I, Frank Zander
explored some of the working and non-working parts of IntelliCAD's Preview VBA. Now, for
the adventurous, in Part II he shows how to create a small 'rubber-stamp' program in
IntelliCAD's working VBA environment I wanted
to create a simple program that would be useful to all IntelliCAD users and not be
specific to one discipline (i.e., Mechanical, Structural, or Architectural, etc.). I also
wanted to create a very simple program that would be easy for the non-programmer to create
and understand. Hopefully I have achieved this with the rubber stamp program.
The "rubber stamp" program gets the drawing
name and path information from the active document. The current Windows system time is
captured and several items are presented to the user to select the type of
"stamp" to place on the drawing. The rubber stamp program then places a Mtext
object in the drawing when the user presses the Stamp button. The resulting Mtext
object is placed in the drawing at coordinates 1,1 with the drawing information as shown
in the rubber stamp user interface.
For this example, the information is:
Drawing: d:\drawings\copper sky\schooner.dwg
Date: 07/08/98 10:50:30 AM
Stamp: As Built
To make the rubber stamp project:
At the IntelliCAD command prompt type VBA.
Create a Form. From the pull-down menus in the VBA
interface select Insert > UserForm.
From the Properties Window (press F4 to activate)
change the Caption of the UserForm1 to rubber stamp.
Create the Exit command button; select the Command
Button control from the Toolbox, place your mouse over the Form and draw a rectangle
to create the button.
Change the command button to display Exit
rather than the current text CommandButton1. To change the text CommandButton1
to Exit, look at the Properties Window (F4) displaying properties-commandbutton1
— change the Caption information from CommandButton1 to Exit.
Slowly double-click the CommandButton1 on the Form and edit the text in-place. The
commandbutton1 should now display Exit.
Setup the click event on the Exit button. So far the command button is in location and shows Exit, but does
nothing. Why? You have not assigned an event to the command button.
What is an event? An event is what happens when a
user changes something or interacts with a program. The event you want to monitor is when
the user clicks the Exit button. Double-click the Exit Command Button
quickly. Notice that VBA view window changes to a View Code window. Also notice that you
are presented with the code following:
Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
End Sub
In between the Private Sub CommanButton1_Click() and
the End Sub is where you write code. Add the code Unload UserForm1.
Save your project.
Run the project. Press F5 or select the
pull-down menu Run > Sub/UserForm.
To exit your program click the Exit button you
just created.
Create the stamp button using the same technique
described at step 4 above. Fill in the code for CommandButton2 as shown in the code
section next section.
Create the Textbox1, TextBox2 and TextBox3
on the UserForm1 by selecting the TextBox control in the Toolbox and draw three
textboxs on the Form.
Copy the code from Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
to End Sub to setup the information that is displayed in the Form as it is initialized
(loaded).
Save your project.
Run your project
Press F5 or select the pull-down menu Run
> Sub/UserForm.
Select the Stamp Options Combo Box to choose
the appropriate stamp type. Press the Stamp button to place the stamp in the
drawing.
Note: The drawing will need to be regenerated and
zoomed to the extents to see the stamp.
The Code
Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
' This code is for the Exit button
Unload UserForm1
End Sub
Private Sub CommandButton2_Click()
' This code is for the Stamp button
' Information filled out/displayed on the UserForm1 is
' placed into drawing
Dim CADD As Object
Dim Doc As Object
Dim NewText As Object
Dim pt1 As Object
Dim StampText As String
Dim TextOut As String
Dim NewSS As Object
Dim myCommand As Object
' Hide the UserForm1
UserForm1.Hide
' Get the information/selection of the
Stamp ComboBox1
If ComboBox1.ListIndex <> -1 Then
StampText = ComboBox1.List(ComboBox1.ListIndex)
End If
' Text information from the UserForm1 to
place
' in the drawing as MText
TextOut = "Drawing: " & TextBox1.Text & "\P" & _
"Date: " & TextBox2.Text & "\P" & _
"Stamp: " & StampText & "\P"
' Specify the insert point of the text at
location 1,1
Set pt1 = Library.CreatePoint(1, 1)
' Get the IntelliCAD application as an
object
Set CADD = GetObject(, "icad.application")
' Get the current IntelliCAD
Document/Drawing
Set Doc = CADD.ActiveDocument
' Add a MText object to the drawing
Set NewText = ActiveDocument.Entities.AddMText(pt1, 8, TextOut)
' Display a message box to the user that
the drawing
' requires a Regen to see new Stamp
MsgBox "Drawing Requires a redraw or Regen to see Stamp"
' *** To redisplay the UserForm1 uncomment
the
' line below...
' UserForm1.Show
Unload UserForm1
End Sub
Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
' When UserForm1 loads (Initializes) the
' following information is filled out in
' the appropriate areas.
Dim CADD As Object
Dim Doc As Object
' *** To run the program with AutoCAD
uncomment
' the line below...
' Set CADD = GetObject(, "autocad.application")
' *** To run the program with AutoCAD
comment
' out the line below...
Set CADD = GetObject(, "icad.application")
' Get the active Document in the running
CADD program
Set Doc = CADD.ActiveDocument
' Fill in the "text" value in
TextBox1 on the
' UserForm1 to have the Document Path shown
TextBox1.Text = Doc.Path
' Fill in the "text" value in
TextBox2 to have
' the current system date
TextBox2.Text = CDate(Now)
' Add selections to the Stamp Options
ComboBox1
ComboBox1.AddItem ("Plot")
ComboBox1.AddItem ("Check Plot")
ComboBox1.AddItem ("For Approval")
ComboBox1.AddItem ("Approved")
ComboBox1.AddItem ("As Built")
ComboBox1.AddItem ("Proposal")
ComboBox1.AddItem ("Confidential")
ComboBox1.AddItem ("Top Secret")
' Set the default displayed information in
' ComboBox1 to ListIndex 0
' the 0 list index in this case is the Item "Plot"
ComboBox1.ListIndex = 0
End Sub
Cut-and-paste the code from your browser or
download the code as an IntelliCAD VBA project (STAMP.ZIP 18Kb - contains STAMP.VBI)
Conclusion
IntelliCAD has laid out the groundwork for future releases of
VBA in IntelliCAD. IntelliCAD has an extensive object library and library of object
functions. However, I found current preview VBA in IntelliCAD to be at an almost
"beta" stage of implementation. Many of the drawing object and object functions
do not operate. I look forward to a future release of IntelliCAD that fully implements all
drawing objects in VBA.
This article was originally published in Technical Design Solutions
© 1998 ConnectPress Ltd
Re-published by permission
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