Tushar Suradkar [ www.geocities.com/cadgurucool ]

Create an AutoCAD Slide Library using VB 6

This is 9^th in the series of 17 tutorials that show you how to create a menu with bitmaps,
display it in the system tray right click as shown in figure and further
run 15 AutoCAD utilities from the menu.

All the tutorials are available for FREE at :

www.geocities.com/cadgurucool ( Click Tutorials 4U )

All VB6 source code and related ocx files are included with the zip file that contained this tutorial and is also available at the above site.

The entire series of AutoCAD - VB tutorials cover :

Create menu with bitmaps using VB 6

Put the menu with bitmaps in the system tray using VB 6

Drawing to DXF - Convert DWG to DXF without opening AutoCAD

Drawing to BMP - Convert DWG to Bitmap format Without Opening AutoCAD

Drawing to JEPG - Convert DWG to Joint Pictures Expert Group format - W.O.A.

Drawing to GIF - Convert DWG to Graphics Interchange Format - W.O.A.

Drawing to TIFF - Convert DWG to Tagged Image File Format - W.O.A.

Drawing to CNC - Generate M-G-code from milling profiles in AutoCAD - W. O. A.

Drawing to CNC (html) - Generate html file showing the milling profile and CNC program - without opening AutoCAD

Attribute Tree List - Display block attributes from a drawing in tree view and list view control just by right clicking on the dwg file in explorer.

Attribut to HTML - Generate a html file showing tables of block attributes in a drawing just by right clicking on the dwg file in explorer.

Attribut to PDF - Generate a Portable Document Format file showning tables of block attributes in a drawing just by right clicking on the dwg file in explorer.

Drawing List - Create a list of all drawings in a folder using the Browse for folder dialog.

Slide Library - Create a slide library of all slides ( AutoCAD sld files ) just by right clicking in windows explorer.

Slide Library Viewer - Learn to build a small utitlity that displays a list of all slides with preview from a slide library (AutoCAD slb file)

All of the above using Visual Basic 6 and without opening AutoCAD .

Two more that fit in the above series but do not use VB or AutoCAD.

Drawing List - Add an item Create DWG List to the right click menu for dwg files in explorer and then quickly create a list of all drawings in the folder.

Drawing List - Add an item Create DWG List to the right click menu for all folders in explorer and then quickly create a list of all drawings in the folder.

Let us begin

It is assumed that :

you have a basic understanding of Visual Basic 6.
AutoCAD 2000 / 2000i or 2002 is installed.

Start Visual Basic and open the AcadTray project.
The acadtray.zip file, this tutorial and the related zip and project files are available (for FREE) at
www.geocities.com/cadgurucool - Click Tutorials 4U

Also, another slide.ocx file that has nothing to do with the current tutorial, but is part of the aforesaid series of tutorials, is present in the acadtray.zip file.

When you open the acadtray.vbp project, an error mesaage will appear regarding the slide.ocx file.

Ignoring the error message, proceed to VB.

OR

You can easily register the slide.ocx file as follows : (first cancel project loading and exit VB)

1. On the windows taskbar, click Start > Run.
2. The Run dialog box appears.
3. Type regsvr32 and then Drag and Drop the slide.ocx file in front of the word regsvr32 that you just typed.
4. The filename with its fullpath will appear as shown in figure. OK or press Enter.
6. A message will appear telling you that the registration succeeded.

Declaring the Variables

Double click to open SlideLibrary.bas module.

 
  Option Explicit
  Public FullSlideLibName As String

  Public Sub Do_Menu_SlideLibrary()
    Dim strFileName As String, SldFolder, strSlbName, ShellString As String
    Dim FileNumber As Integer
    Dim RetVal, RetValSlb As Variant

FullSlideLibName will hold the final outcome of this module - the slide library.
The Sub is called from one of the menu items.
StrFileName will store the filename with path of the slidelib.exe utility.
SldFolder is the folder which contains all the slide (.sld) files.
strSlbName will store the user specified slide library file name (.slb)
ShellString will hold the stringthat we build to pass to the Shell function of VB.

FileNumber is for the FreeFile function.
And, RetVal and RetValSlb are temporary intermediate variables.

Locate SlideLib.exe

Ask the user to select the location of the SlideLib.exe utility that always sits in the Support folder of AutoCAD.

 
  MsgBox "Locate and select slidelib.exe" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _ 
  "( eg. in C:\Program Files\ACAD2000\Support )"
  Form1.FileDlg.Flags = cdlOFNFileMustExist Or cdlOFNPathMustExist Or _
                        cdlOFNExplorer Or cdlOFNLongNames
  Form1.FileDlg.Filter = "SlideLib Application (slidelib.exe)|*.exe"
  Form1.FileDlg.FilterIndex = 1
  Form1.FileDlg.ShowOpen
  strFileName = Form1.FileDlg.FileName

Using the ShowOpen method of microsoft common dialog control,
Store the SlideLib.exe file with full path in strFileName

Get the Slides Folder and create a batch file

 
  If strFileName = "" Then
  MsgBox "Error : " & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "* File Dialog cancelled, Or" & _
                      vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "* You did not select the slidelib.exe file _ 
					  after locating it."
  Else
    SldFolder = BrowseFolders("Select folder containing slide files.")
    If SldFolder = "" Then
      MsgBox "Error : No folder selected"
    Else
      FileNumber = FreeFile
      Open SldFolder & "\" & "makelist.bat" For Output As #FileNumber
        Print #FileNumber, "dir " & SldFolder & "\" & "*.sld > " & SldFolder & "\" & _ 
			   "sldlist.txt /b" & vbLf
        Print #FileNumber, "exit" & vbLf
      Close #FileNumber

Check if the string returned was zero length.
There are two posibilites :

1. The user cancelled the file open dialog, or
2. The user located the support folder but did not actually pick the slidelib.exe file.

Notify the user accordingly.
If everything was ok, proceed to locate the folder where the slides are kept.
This is done using the windows standard Browse for Folder dialog.

The BrowseFolder function is defined in the foldbrow.bas module in the same project.
Next, if the user cancels the dialog, prompt accordingly.

If both the exe file and folder are located, make a batch file in the same folder,
which writes a list of all sld files to a text file called sldlist.txt

The VB statement that does this write the following lines to the batch file :

dir X:\MySlidesFolder\*.sld > X:\MySlidesFolder\sldlist.txt

Run the batch file

 
  ChDir SldFolder

  RetVal = Shell(SldFolder & "\" & "makelist.bat", vbHide)
  If RetVal = 0 Then
    MsgBox "Slide List creation failed !"
  Else
    strSlbName = InputBox("Specify filename for the slide library" & vbCrLf & _ 
    			  "(without the .SLB extension).", "Create Slide Library", "MySlideLib")
    If strSlbName = "" Or Trim(strSlbName) = "" Then
      strSlbName = "MySlideLib"
    End If

    FileNumber = FreeFile
    FileCopy strFileName, SldFolder & "\slidelib.exe"

    Open SldFolder & "\" & "makelib.bat" For Output As #FileNumber
      Print #FileNumber, SldFolder & "\slidelib.exe " & " " & SldFolder & "\" & _ 
 	    strSlbName & " < " & "sldlist.txt" & vbLf
      Print #FileNumber, "exit" & vbLf
    Close #FileNumber

Change the current folder to the slides folder.
Run the batch file using the Shell function.
If the shell function succeeded, it returns a non-zero value to RetVal
Ask the user file name for the slide library (.slb) file.
If the user did not enter any name, set the default to MySlideLib
Copy the SlideLib.exe file from AutoCAD folder to the slides folder.
Write a batch file to do what you would other wise do manually at the DOS prompt :

slidelib.exe MySlideLib.slb < SldList.txt

This creates the slide library.