Which books to buy for customizing AutoCAD 2000

[hyposmurf]

Anyone know of any good basic books for customizing AutoCAD,covering such topics as VBA,scripts,AUTOLISP,VisualLISP and DIESEL?There seem to be loads of books out there,to choose from,dont know where to start! :shock:.The easier the book is to understand,the more likely I am to stick with it and not get bored.I've started looking at some VBA and AutoLISP books,theyre about £40-£60 :shock:Also which would be most beneficial to learn,AutoLISP, VisualLISP Or VBA?If I'm going to tackle one of them I'd rather being learning the most useful of them.I understand basic macros and some of the basics of Autolisp.What are the benefits/limitations of each?Where are each of them best utilised?

[hendie]

hyposmurf, if you want to learn Lisp or VBA check out Kenny Ramage's site at www.afralisp.com (www,afralisp.com)
I've found the problem with books is that the practical examples they give are always really crap and you get bored real easy trying to do something you have no interest in.
Kenny's site has a load of practical and useful Lisp & VBA routines. Not only that but he explains everything in great detail.

there are a couple of really great sites out there but if you are just at the beginning, I'd recommend Kenny's site ~ you certainly wouldn't get any better in any book !

as for the second part of your question Lisp or VBA ??? well, why not both ?
I started off "learning" Lisp but I never got the hang of DCL (dialog control language) needed for dialogues in Lisp... that's when I turned to VBA. Dialogues in VBA are so simple but Lisp is very flexible and I suppose a "native" language to Acad. Normally, when I'm going to be writing code, if there's no dialogue, I'll go for Lisp but if I need a dialogue, then I'll go for VBA. (there are a few more things to consider really, but that takes care of 99% of the consideration). Again, if I'm going to be interacting with anything else e.g. an Access Database, then VBA is the way to go.
Another good site to ask questions is www.cadalog.com (www.cadalog.com) where I see you're a member. There are a couple of excellent Lisp gurus over there willing to jump in and answer any questions or help you out with code. And you've got fuccaro here as well !

[TevsR]

I have a similar question: Are there any books about how to customize AutoCAD using Menu Macros?

[David Bethel]

For basic Autolisp a decent web site:

http://home.netcom.com/~rogh/autolisp/index.htm

For books, this list was compiled back in the late '90s from Compuserve ACAD forum:

A saved list gathered from previous messages:

AutoLisp in Plain English by George O Head. ISBN 1-56604-140-6
Maximizing AutoCAD Release 13 CD Included ISBN 0-8273-7993-5
Essential AutoLISP Disk Included ISBN 0-387-94571-7
Introduction to AutoLISP ISBN 0-13-206624-6
AutoLISP Treasure Chest Disk Included ISBN 0-87930-518-5
AutoLISP Programmers Toolbox Disk Included ISBN 1-55851-556-9
AutoLISP Programming Principles and Techniques ISBN 1-56637-417-0
AutoLISP Programming Principles and Techniques by Rod Rawls/Mark Hagen
(Goodheart Wilcox)
LISP, P.H. Winston & B. K. P. Horn, ISBN 0-201-08372-8

Don't overlook the AutoCAD Customization Manual. Even though it is on the
CD help system with R14 still a worthwhile book for $25.

AutoLisp Comprehensive AutoLisp Clip Book, courtesy of the Tampa Bay
AutoCAD User Group (TBAUG).
Contributed by Ben Waggoner (http://www.concentric.net/~benwagg) and
co-authored by Steve Smith (http://www.tbaug.ggise.com) .

"AutoCAD Programming in C/C++", by Owen Ransen. It's about half ADS and half
ARX.
It costs about $60 U.S.

LISP WEBSITES

Here are few links collected (from Jim Mims)
www.cadalog.com
http://www.webfooters.com/acadtest.html
http://www.arken.net/
http://members.xoom.com/Chane/
http://www.cadence-mag.com/
http://www.lgmicro.com/rabbit.htm (-one of my favorites!)
http://www.joelorr.com/
http://netnow.micron.net/~tschwarz/links/cadrsrc.htm#support
http://www.cadonline.com/
http://www.cadsyst.com/
http://www.ddpburney.com which will become www.ddptrinidad on Oct 1
200 free lisp routines plus AutoCAD tips, CAD links, etc. (Dave Jones)

As to menu macros, your are limited to native acad functions and diesel language.

HTH -David

[hyposmurf]

Thanks for the links but the following links do not work:

http://www.webfooters.com/acadtest.html
http://www.ddpburney.com/
http://netnow.micron.net/~tschwarz/links/cadrsrc.htm
http://www.lgmicro.com/rabbit.htm
http://members.xoom.com/Chane/
and the next lot I'm a bit confused as to where the tutorials are:

http://www.webfooters.com/acadtest.html
http://www.ddpburney.com/
http://netnow.micron.net/~tschwarz/links/cadrsrc.htm
http://www.lgmicro.com/rabbit.htm
http://members.xoom.com/Chane/
If you could resend a more direct link I'd be greatfull.

[David Bethel]

Those were good in the late '90s. I need to recheck them all. Not many keep free sites up to date very well.

[Flores]

As mentioned before, a good site for AutoLISP (no Visual LISP) is:
http://home.netcom.com/~rogh/autolisp/index.htm
It is slow to load, so you have to have a little patience.
CADGuru has some tutorials:
http://www.geocities.com/cadgurucool/tutorial.htm

Something helpful that I have found is to go to some websites that offer LISP in raw code, and after finding an interesting code, study it to see how it was done. (By raw code, I mean that it is a .lsp file format, not .fas or .vlax)
Here are a few sites:
http://www.freecadapps.com/swsubcat.php?value=ACG
http://www.caddepot.com/dcd1/Autodesk/

I have purchased LispLink in the past for writing LISP, but the Visual Lisp Editor in ACAD 2002 is more stable than it was in ACAD 2k, so I now use it instead. http://www.caelink.com/
To use the Visual Lisp Editor in ACAD, enter either "vlide" or "vlisp" at the command line.

Flores

[TevsR]

As to menu macros, your are limited to native acad functions and diesel language.
This is great for ppl who don't know LISP.

[fuccaro]

As to menu macros, your are limited to native acad functions and diesel language.
OR
you can define new functions in autolisp like
defun c:my_function()
and call them from a menu macro!

[David Bethel]

you can define new functions in autolisp like
defun c:my_function()
and call them from a menu macro!

I was assuming him to be using LT or something like it.