Exploring Vba

Bonus Chapter 5

Exploring VBA

Visual Basic

for Applications (VBA) is integrated as a standard part of AutoCAD 2005. Thismeans that you can use VBA for all your AutoCAD development tasks instead of(or in additionto) ObjectARX and AutoLISP. Ifyou’re already familiar with some dialect ofBASIC, you’ll findthat VBA is easy to learn. Ifyou’re a seasoned AutoLISP developer, you may find the VBA way of doing things odd, but after a while it will make sense. A table at the end ofthis chapter will helpyou translate AutoLISP concepts to their VBA equivalents.Topics include the following:

◆

Getting Started with VBA

◆

Using Procedures

◆

Variables and Constants

◆

Control Structures

◆

Built-in Functions

◆

Converting from AutoLISP to VBA

◆

IfYou Want to Experiment…

Getting Started with VBA

Microsoft’s VBA package supplies two things to AutoCAD. First, there’s the VBA language engineitself, which does the job ofinterpreting any VBA code you write when your application is exe-cuted. Second, there’s the VBA Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which provides youwith the tools for editing and debugging your VBA code. In this chapter, you’ll learn the basics of the VBA language itself. Bonus Chapter 6, found on this book’s CD, describes the IDE and how tointegrate VBA code with the AutoCAD user interface. However, you need to know just enoughabout the IDE to type and execute procedures to follow along with this chapter, so here’s a quick introduction.

Launching the VBA IDE

To get started, you’ll want to become familiar with the AutoCAD VBA Integrated DevelopmentEnvironment, or IDE. The following steps show you how to open the IDE.

1.

In AutoCAD, choose Tools

➢

Macro

➢

Visual Basic Editor to open the VBA editor in aseparate window.

2.

To move between the IDE and the AutoCAD window, click the View AutoCAD button atthe left end ofthe Editor toolbar, or choose View

➢

AutoCAD from an editor menu. Youcan also press Alt+F11 to move from the editor back to AutoCAD or to go from the mainAutoCAD window back to the VBA editor.

Tip

You can also open the editor automatically when you load a VBA project. To do so, choose Tools

➢

Macro

➢

Load Project and make sure the Open Visual Basic Editor check box is selected.

Creating a New Module

At any time, you can have more than one VBA project open in AutoCAD. (You do not need to haveany project open, however.) All the components in a project are loaded at the time the project isopened. A project can consist ofany ofthese components:

◆

Modules

◆

Class modules

◆

UserFormsA

module

is a container for VBA code. A

class module

is the VBA component used to define a newtype ofobject. A

UserForm

is a customizable user interface component. Class modules are anadvanced topic, and you’ll learn about UserForms in Bonus Chapter 6 (which is on the CD), but fornow, let’s just create a standard module. This will be a place where you can execute code samples.Ifyou have AutoCAD open with a default blank drawing loaded, you’ll find that this drawingincludes a default VBA project named ACADProject.

1.

To insert a new module, choose Insert

➢

Module, or click the Insert Module button on theStandard toolbar. This creates a new module and opens that module in the editor. The editor candisplay many modules at once, since it’s a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) application.

2.

While you’re learning VBA, you’ll probably find it useful to maximize the module you’reworking with. Click the Maximize button in the Module1 window to enlarge it.

Creating and Running a New Procedure

Modules hold VBA code, but one module can contain a lot ofcode. In VBA, code is broken into proce-dures. You’ll learn about the different types ofprocedures in a moment, but for now, let’s just create one.

1.

In the Module1 window, type

Sub HelloWorld

and press the Enter key. VBA inserts paren-theses at the end ofthe procedure definition and automatically creates an

End Sub

line tomark the end ofthe procedure.

2.

Now type

MsgBox “Hello World”

in between the

Sub

and

End Sub

lines. Notice that VBAprovides you with Quick Info about the arguments for the MsgBox function. For now, youcan just ignore these.

EXPLORING VBA

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3.

Click anywhere offthe line you just typed to accept it and clear the Quick Info.

4.

Now that you’ve created a procedure, let’s run it. You can run procedures interactively in theVBA environment by using the Immediate window (sometimes called the Debug window).This window may already be displayed at the bottom ofthe IDE. Ifnot, you can open it bychoosing View

➢

Immediate Window or by pressing Ctrl+G.

5.

Type

HelloWorld

in the Immediate window to tell VBA to execute the HelloWorld procedurethat you just created. The

MsgBox

statement creates a popup message in your AutoCAD window(and, incidentally, makes the AutoCAD window the active window, as shown in Figure 1).

6.

Click OK in this dialog box to return to the VBA IDE. Ifyou’ve followed along with theinstructions in this section, your screen will look like Figure 2.

Figure 2

The HelloWorldprocedure in theVBA IDE

Figure 1

The results of the HelloWorldprocedure

3

GETTING STARTED WITH VBA

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