What is Visual Lisp / Auto Lisp ?

Dear Friends,

I have been using AUTOCAD for 10 years and I have heard the terms Visual Lisp, Auto Lisp etc but never used them. I have some knowledge of VBA programming, particularly for use in Excel. I also know that when we enter VLIDE, we get a new window where we can write programs. My questions :-

1.) What is difference between Visual Lisp and Autolisp ? Which one do we use in VLIDE ?

2.) Which is better among two. In case I want to learn, which should I learn.

3.) I also heard somewhere that AutoDesk has discontinued use of Lisp in New versions and is promoting use of VBA, VC++, .NET. Is it true ? If yes, then where is the development environment for the same in AUTOCAD ?

Thanks.

I also want to know that when i use VBA in Excel, and I use any object, then Excel suggests its functions / properties which I can use. However, i have made one or two basic programs in VLIDE (actually I have copied them from forums for learning purpose !) but when I point my cursor to any object, it does not suggested me anything. Is there a way to get those suggestions ?

Thanks.

Visual LISP and AutoLISP well summarised here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoLISP They are now essentially the same.

AutoLISP is safe, AFAIK it will live on in new ACAD versions whereas VBA is being deprecated by M$SOFT aside from within MSOffice and may well vanish from AutoCAD. The "new thing" is to use .NET to build interprogram integration but it's amazing what can be done from VLISP with some extension libraries. There's plenty of information and help available on this board as well as at http://www.theswamp.org on the ins and outs of CAD programming.

Look through the AutoLISP Developer's Guide section of the AutoCAD Developer Help (type F1) for information on IDE editor aids such as text autocompletion. It ain't Excel's Intellisense, but in some ways it's less of an irritant. There's quite a good VLISP tutorial in there too.

For learning, I suggest this Alanjt's link - I use this pdf very often. Link here

I am attaching a link to the text in Chapter 1 of the book "AutoCAD expert's Visual LISP" which tries to explain these concepts.

Chapter 1. AutoLISP/Visual LISP

The rumble heard around the world was the day Autodesk remove plain lisp they know it would cause a world wide revolt .

The best way to learn just pick topics in the LISP forum matching something you want to do for example code. There plenty of helpers here when your stuck lots of good books out there to. The Visual lisp developers bible. If you have a kindle pretty cheap to buy.

Dear Marko,

Thanks for the great link !!!!

Marko, would you say that this PDF helps you understand LISPs really well in order to make your own or would a book help aside from this PDF? If a book is recommended, which would you or anyone say is best for learning how to make LISPs?

If a book is recommended, which would you or anyone say is best for learning how to make LISPs?

I suppose that having written it I must believe it does its job in teaching AutoLISP/Visual LISP. The name is "AutoCAD expert's Visual LISP". What I meant with this title is that to become a real AutoCAD expert you need AutoLISP/Visual LISP.

You can watch some videos explaining this:

I suppose that having written it I must believe it does its job in teaching AutoLISP/Visual LISP. The name is "AutoCAD expert's Visual LISP". What I meant with this title is that to become a real AutoCAD expert you need AutoLISP/Visual LISP.

You can watch some videos explaining this:

 

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The book is available at

AMAZON.COM, both in paperback an e-book formats

Thank you so very much!! I can't wait to start making some lisps and post them somewhere.

What I meant with this title is that to become a real AutoCAD expert you need AutoLISP/Visual LISP.

Jokes aside though, VLisp/ALisp is not an issue. I see VLisp simply as some addons to ALisp. If you know one, then the other is nothing more than extra functions you can use. Much like an extra library in DotNet. The most "major" difference between ALisp and VLisp is with VLisp (or rather the VLIDE) you can compile LSP files into FAS/VLX files which run faster than the interpreted LSP (usually).

Did you look at the tutorial here http://www.cadtutor.net/tutorials/autolisp/quick-start.php? It also has a link to the AfraLISP site for more tutorials. And it's all free.

I actually got asked this recently again. Here was my answer:

I'd start off learning the normal AutoLisp functions first, since you cannot use the VLisp functions without knowing most of the ALisp ones already. Sorry, no books on my side - I've learned Auto/Visual Lisp through trail-n-error, looking at samples & asking on these forums. Some sites also have decent tuts these days.

 

Try these to start: http://www.jefferypsanders.com/autolisptut.html

 

If you know some of that already, skip over it. But make sure you know how to do up to the Advanced one (loops & conditions definitely, perhaps also DXF). IMO, Extreme is a good practise to see just how much you understand.

 

Only after you've got somewhere with the Advanced (at least completed the Intermediate) tut above would I try for more VLisp specific stuff like this: http://www.afralisp.net/visual-lisp/tutorials/