ManuSoft News

QuikPik 4.2 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2012

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:52:38 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: April 7, 2011

QuikPik 4.2 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2012

Apple Creek, Ohio, April 7, 2011 -- QuikPik(tm) 4.2 has been released with support for AutoCAD 2012 and AutoCAD LT 2012.

QuikPik is a popular suite of user interface enhancements designed to make the AutoCAD interface more useful and productive. QuikPik adds 19 separate features including resizable dialogs, faster mouse input, locking toolbars, enhanced right-click input, taller and wider dropdowns, and many more common user requests.

QuikPik is available directly from ManuSoft, with costs ranging from US$30.00 per seat for individual licenses up to US$500.00 for site licenses. ManuSoft may be contacted at sales@manusoft.com or +1-330-698-1723 for sales inquiries and special purchase options. A shareware version of Periscope is available for download from the ManuSoft web site at http://www.manusoft.com/software/periscope.html.

QuikPik 4.2 is a no-charge upgrade for registered users of previous versions of QuikPik. Registered users may obtain the upgrade by logging in at the ManuSoft Customer Service Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

ManuSoft has a long history of developing AutoCAD-related software and utilities that push the limits and set new standards. In addition to software, ManuSoft also provides independent training, customization, support, and analysis for customers worldwide, with a special emphasis on manufacturing and related fields.

QuikPik is a trademark of ManuSoft.
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

Periscope 5.4 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2012

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:44:10 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: April 4, 2011

Periscope 5.4 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2012

Apple Creek, Ohio, April 4, 2011 -- Periscope(tm) 5.4 has been released with support for AutoCAD 2012 and AutoCAD LT 2012.

Periscope is a software utility that provides fast drawing entity feedback by dynamically displaying information about the object beneath the cursor in a compact tooltip window. The software includes an API that allows users to modify or extend the displayed information.

Periscope is available directly from ManuSoft, with costs ranging from US$40.00 per seat for individual licenses up to US$700.00 for site licenses. ManuSoft may be contacted at sales@manusoft.com or +1-330-698-1723 for sales inquiries and special purchase options. A shareware version of Periscope is available for download from the ManuSoft web site at http://www.manusoft.com/software/periscope.html.

Periscope 5.4 is a no-charge upgrade for registered users of previous versions of Periscope. Registered users may obtain the upgrade by logging in at the ManuSoft Customer Service Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

Periscope is a trademark of ManuSoft.
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

SuperPurge Supports AutoCAD(R) 2012

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:39:41 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: April 4, 2011

SuperPurge Supports AutoCAD(R) 2012

Apple Creek, Ohio, April 4, 2011 -- An update to SuperPurge 2.09 has been released with support for AutoCAD 2012. Registered users of SuperPurge may download the update free of charge by logging in at the ManuSoft Customer Service Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

SuperPurge is available directly from ManuSoft, with costs ranging from US$30.00 per seat for individual licenses up to US$900.00 for a site license. ManuSoft may be contacted at sales@manusoft.com or +1-330-698-1723 for sales inquiries and special purchase options. A shareware version of SuperPurge is available for download from the ManuSoft web site at http://www.manusoft.com/software/superpurge.html.

SuperPurge is a trademark of ManuSoft.
AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

QuikPik 4.1 Adds Classic Title Bar Feature

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:19:43 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: September 24, 2010

QuikPik 4.1 Adds Classic Title Bar Feature

Apple Creek, Ohio, September 24, 2010 -- QuikPik(tm) 4.1 has been released with a new feature that addresses a user interface issue in AutoCAD 2009 and later versions of AutoCAD. The new feature is called 'Classic title bar', and it replaces the dark title bar and menu bar in AutoCAD with a standard customizable Windows style title bar that reflects the user's Windows display settings, including high contrast display settings. The new feature was added especially to address complaints by vision impaired AutoCAD users.

QuikPik is a popular suite of user interface enhancements designed to make the AutoCAD interface more useful and productive. QuikPik now adds 19 separate features including resizable dialogs, faster mouse input, locking toolbars, enhanced right-click input, taller and wider dropdowns, and many more common user requests.

QuikPik is available directly from ManuSoft, with costs ranging from US$30.00 per seat for individual licenses up to US$500.00 for site licenses. ManuSoft may be contacted at sales@manusoft.com or +1-330-698-1723 for sales inquiries and special purchase options. A shareware version of QuikPik is available for download from the ManuSoft web site at http://www.manusoft.com/software/quikpik.html.

QuikPik 4.1 is a no-charge upgrade for registered users of previous versions of QuikPik. Registered users may obtain the upgrade by logging in at the ManuSoft Customer Service Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

QuikPik is a trademark of ManuSoft.
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

SuperPurge Supports AutoCAD(R) 2011

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:49:20 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: May 15, 2010

SuperPurge Supports AutoCAD(R) 2011

Apple Creek, Ohio, May 15, 2010 -- An update to SuperPurge 2.09 has been released with support for AutoCAD 2011. Registered users of SuperPurge may download the update free of charge by logging in at the ManuSoft Customer Service Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

SuperPurge is a trademark of ManuSoft.
AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

QuikPik 4.0 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2011

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:37:38 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: May 15, 2010

QuikPik 4.0 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2011

Apple Creek, Ohio, May 15, 2010 -- QuikPik(tm) 4.0 has been released with support for AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011.

QuikPik is a popular suite of user interface enhancements designed to make the AutoCAD interface more useful and productive. QuikPik adds 18 separate features including resizable dialogs, faster mouse input, locking toolbars, enhanced right-click input, taller and wider dropdowns, and many more common user requests.

QuikPik is available directly from ManuSoft, with costs ranging from US$30.00 per seat for individual licenses up to US$500.00 for site licenses. ManuSoft may be contacted at sales@manusoft.com or +1-330-698-1723 for sales inquiries and special purchase options. A shareware version of QuikPik is available for download from the ManuSoft web site at http://www.manusoft.com/software/quikpik.html.

QuikPik 4.0 is a no-charge upgrade for registered users of previous versions of QuikPik. Registered users may obtain the upgrade by logging in at the ManuSoft Customer Service Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

QuikPik is a trademark of ManuSoft.
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

Periscope 5.2 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2011

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:29:40 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: May 15, 2010

Periscope 5.2 Supports AutoCAD(R) 2011

Apple Creek, Ohio, May 15, 2010 -- Periscope(tm) 5.2 has been released with support for AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011.

Periscope 5.2 is a no-charge upgrade for registered users of previous versions of Periscope. Registered users may obtain the upgrade by logging in at the ManuSoft Customer Service Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

Periscope is a trademark of ManuSoft.
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

Demand Loading a LISP File

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

The registry demand loading feature in AutoCAD and Bricscad is a great method for loading ObjectARX and BRX modules automatically at startup, and it's relatively easy to create the demand loading settings from an installation program or MSI file at install time. Unfortunately it only works for ARX or BRX files (and also with .NET dlls in AutoCAD 2006 and later). Some years ago, I created a small ObjectARX module called VLXLoad. The purpose of this module was to work as a stub to load an associated .vlx file of the same base name in the same folder. I've since expanded this small utility so that it can load any type of LISP file, and renamed it LspLoad. The idea is to rename the LspLoad.*.* file to the name of the associated .lsp/.vlx/.fas file (i.e. MyApp.18.arx will look for and load MyApp.vlx in the same directory), then create demand load registry settings to load the renamed LspLoad module. Voila, the associated LISP file gets loaded as if it was being demand loaded from the registry.

The LspLoad source code demonstrates an important technique that I often see questions about in Autodesk's ObjectARX discussion group: how to get the full path to the ARX file from code within the file. The secret is to use the Windows API function GetModuleFileName(), passing as its first argument the current module instance handle, which is available in an ObjectARX module as _hdllInstance (note that it's _hd, two lower case L's, then followed by an upper case I for Instance).

I've uploaded here the complete source code along with a solution file for Visual Studio 2010. The solution requires environment variables defined as described here. You'll need to have Daffodil for Visual Studio installed, and you'll need the target version of Visual Studio installed to build the various projects targeting different platforms. If you just want the fully built modules, download the latest versions from my Freebies page.

Download: LspLoadSource.zip (20k)
Version 3.2 uploaded 2010-10-16

If you look at the source code, you'll notice that these modules define a lisp callable function named (GetPathOf<basefilename>) that returns the directory from where the LspLoad module loaded. This also demonstrates another technique: defining an ADS (Lisp callable) function by "calculating" the function name at runtime.

Periscope 5.0 Adds Support for Bricscad(tm)

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: ManuSoft (http://www.manusoft.com)
Contact: Owen Wengerd (+1-330-698-1723 or owenw@manusoft.com)
Date: December 21, 2009

Periscope 5.0 Adds Support for Bricscad(tm)

Apple Creek, Ohio, December 21, 2009 -- Periscope(tm) 5.0 has been released with support for Bricscad versions 9 and 10. AutoCAD(R) and AutoCAD LT(R) continue to be supported in the new version.

Periscope is available directly from ManuSoft, with costs ranging from US$30.00 per seat for individual licenses up to US$500.00 for site licenses. ManuSoft may be contacted at sales@manusoft.com or +1-330-698-1723 for sales inquiries and special purchase options. A shareware version of Periscope is available for download from the ManuSoft web site at http://www.manusoft.com/software/periscope.html.

Periscope 5.0 is a no-charge upgrade for registered users of previous versions of Periscope. Registered users may obtain the upgrade by visiting the Software Download Center (http://www.manusoft.com/store/customer.html) or contacting ManuSoft at sales@manusoft.com.

Periscope is a trademark of ManuSoft.
Bricscad is a trademark of Bricsys Inc.
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
# # #

Using VC Build Hook to Target Multiple AutoCAD Versions

webmaster@manusoft.com (Administrator) — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 05:00:00 +0000

[Update: Visual Studio 2010 now includes a built in feature called native multi-targeting that replaces the need for VC Build Hook. Read this blog post to learn how to use VS 2010 to target older versions of Visual Studio.]

I created the VC Build Hook utility in order to make it possible to use the current Visual Studio IDE for building ObjectARX applications that target any version of AutoCAD. This is desirable because ObjectARX applications must be built by the Visual C/C++ build tools that correspond to the ObjectARX SDK version for the target AutoCAD version. VC Build Hook works by switching the executables path during a Visual Studio build and pointing the paths to the desired version of the Visual C/C++ build tools. In addition, VC Build Hook automatically fixes build tool command options to account for differences between VC versions so that build commands produced by one version of Visual Studio are correctly interpreted by another version of the build tools. Assuming you've already set up your projects as described here (note that you must have a working installation of the necessary version of Visual C/C++ build tools and runtime libraries), then you'll need to install the current version of VC Build Hook:

Download: VCBuildHookSetup.msi (290k)
Version 4.0.2.5 uploaded 2010-06-05 (supports VC 7.1, VC 8, and VC 9)

Once the VC Build Hook utility is installed, it's just a matter of setting the VC Build Hook extended properties for your projects to use the correct build tools. As of version 4.02, VC Build Hook also sets the INCLUDE and LIB system variables to the current settings for the selected version of VC, so there is no need to explicitly specify the correct paths in your project settings.

When VC Build Hook is started, Visual Studio solutions will have two new extended properties: LowPriorityBuild and BuildToolVersion.

The LowPriorityBuild property is only available for solutions and can be either 'Yes', 'No', or 'NotSet'. Currently, VC Build Hook makes all builds low priority unless this property is set to 'No'. A low priority build means that other tasks will receive more processor time during a build (at the expense of build time, of course). The BuildToolVersion property is available for solutions or projects, and may be set to 'VC7', 'VC8', 'VC9', or 'Default'. A setting of 'Default' for projects causes the solution property to be inherited. If the project and solution are both set to 'Default', then the build tool paths will not be affected and Visual Studio will use the default build tools.

When using Visual Studio 2005 or later IDE:

Disable parallel builds! The VC Build Hook utility does not work correctly if two simultaneous builds are using different settings, so you should disable this feature in Visual Studio global options. To do this, go to Tools->Options, open 'Projects and Solutions', select the 'Build and Run' tab, and change the 'maximum number of parallel project builds' to 1. In my experience, Visual Studio is more stable when parallel builds are disabled, so there is a benefit to disabling this feature that is unrelated to VC Build Hook.

When using the VC 7 build tools:

Disable the Manifest Tool. This is easy to do, but not obvious or well documented. Right-click on a project and select 'Tool Build Order...', then select 'All Configurations' in the configuration dropdown and dismiss the warning dialog, then uncheck the box beside 'Manifest Tool'. Using the IDE, you have to do this one project at a time.

In linker settings, on the 'Manifest File' tab, set 'Generate Manifest' to 'No'. This disables manifest file generation.

Disable error reporting. In C/C++ settings, on the 'Advanced' tab, set 'Error Reporting' to 'Default'. Do the same in linker settings, on the 'Advanced' tab.

Set 'Treat wchar_t as Built-in Type' to 'No' in the in the C/C++ project settings Language section.

Don't use Unicode response files. Change this in C/C++ settings on the 'General' tab by setting 'Use UNICODE Response Files' to 'No'. Do the same in linker settings, also on the 'General' tab. The VC Build Hook utility will automatically convert Unicode response files to ANSI files if they are being sent to a VC 7 build tool, so this step is not strictly required, however the build will be slightly less efficient if the files need to be converted.

If your project uses precompiled headers, there is one additional issue to deal with. Visual Studio 2005 removed support for the "Automatically Generate" (/YX) precompiled header option. This is not a problem when using the VC 8 or later build tools, but when using the VC 7 build tools, it can make the build process unbearably slow. Luckily it's not difficult to re-enable automatic use of precompiled headers when building with VC 7 build tools. To re-enable this feature in a project that is using the VC 7 build tools, you need to edit the 'Precompiled Header' tab of the C/C++ settings. First, make sure precompiled headers are disabled ('Create/Use Precompiled Header' should be set to 'Not Using Precompiled Headers'), then set the 'Precompiled Header File' to '$(IntDir)\$(TargetName).pch' for all configurations, then go to the 'Command Line' tab and add '/YXStdAfx.h' to the 'Additional options' field at the bottom. Voila! Precompiled headers should now work just as they did when building with the Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE.

If your project was created by a later version of the ObjectARX wizard that does not create a .def file, you must add the following in one of your source files (I prefer acrxEntryPoint.cpp) in order to ensure that the necessary functions get exported:

#pragma comment(linker,"/EXPORT:_acrxEntryPoint") #pragma comment(linker,"/EXPORT:_acrxGetApiVersion")

I need to stress again that these steps only work without error after you have implemented the practices discussed here.