DCL files and ACADDOC.LSP networked office

I'm trying to implement the "Al's Steel Mill" routine across our network for others to use and share. I've always had it around and simply want others to enjoy this productive program. Most people I assume have seen it and/or have used it before.

My question is this: we run everything off a network and use our ACADDOC.LSP file to maintain our routines. With this particular program, it works fine if the DCL file is in the root program directory. Is there a way to contain the DCL file in the specified routines directory so we can implement this to our other users and satellite offices?

Thanks in advance! If need be, I can upload a ZIP file containing the necessary files I'm talking about.

- Tannar

When I worked in a networked office, I set up a Support Path Folder on the network for all users' AutoCAD, and housed all programs in that folder (including the ACADDOC.lsp) this way, the manager could have control over which programs were being loaded on every machine from one location.

Is the location of the DCL file hard-coded into the Steel program? Or does it just use a findfile / load_dialog expression to search the support paths?

Ah... after reading your post it made the light bulb go off in my head. In my LISP file directory, I have sub-directories for certain programs, including this particular one. Well, the LISP file parent directory is pathed in AutoCAD, but not any of the sub-directories. Soon as I moved the DCL file to the parent directory, and deleted it out of the root installation directory, it worked!

I guess the search paths don't see sub-directories, correct?

Anyways, seems that I fixed it.

I guess the search paths don't see sub-directories, correct?

Correct - though I agree, they should.

Anyways, seems that I fixed it.

Good stuff

FWIW - We too use a network deployment for each version. Only myself and a few others have write-access to the network, where acad.lsp, and acaddoc.lsp for each version are stored (separate directories of course)... What I was going to add though, is that within my acaddoc.lsp, I include the following (before implementing corporate standards), in order to allow users to load their own custom routines:

((lambda (user)
  (if (findfile (strcat user ".lsp"))
   (load user)))
 (getvar 'loginname))

We run just about everything off a network the main thing is to set your file paths so it can find the correct directories, we change some stuff to "read only" stops accidental overwrites.

For setting up a new user I have a lisp that makes all the correct local directories and sets all the paths to the server similar to loading an ARG. Just a bit easier to use when someone manages to lose just 1 bit. You could write a full setup lisp that copies everthing to the correct locations from say a CD if you need to setup a different location. Where about to get new boxes and we are going to start from scratch no ARGS so this setup will be a gospel.

We have moved away from acaddoc.lsp and use our own startup.lsp makes upgrades easier.