TurboCAD VBA Crash Course in 60 Seconds

TurboCAD VBA Crash Course in 60 Seconds first created 21/09/05 - last modified 22/09/05 Page Author: Ty Harness

All the Pro versions above 6.5 of TurboCAD can use Visual Basic for Applications. If you've had any experience with VB then you'll find it very easy to learn. VBA allows you to access objects created by the application i.e. TurboCAD. For example you can programmatically draw a line by passing the start point and end point into the addsingleline() function. I think V9 introduced a VBA macro recorder of key strokes - personally I don't like it, but it's OK to string a few button presses together.

If you do not have any experience with VB or any other high level language then take a look at the 'VB in 60 seconds' course
Unfortunately by default the typical setup of TC does not install the VBA SDK. To find out if you have VBA installed:

Run Turbocad and choose a new drawing

Tools - VBA Macros

and you should see the options VBA Editor and Macros.

Figure 1

If you don't see the above you'll need to run your TC setup again and modify the setup by checking the VBA SDK - it's worth installing the examples as well because you'll learn a lot from them.

Figure 2

How to run an example macro:

Tools

VBA Macros

Macros

Project1 should be highlighted. Now change the project name to anything (I know it doesn't make any sense)

Add - the default TC macros folder should open

Choose (say) gear.tcm

Close the macros dialog

You should then see a new tabbed dialog appear in the editor called VBA Macros. You can then see any public subroutine names that will run the macro. For the gear macro it's called CreateGear. A macro may have 1 or more subroutines to call, which in turn may call a userform (a modal dialog) or even a dll function.

Figure 3

Repeat the procedure if you need 2 or more macros in the same drawing. When you reopen your TC drawing the macros will be loaded automatically - if you pass your drawing to a 3rd party and they don't have macro installed TC won't fall over but if the macro is an essential you'll have to send the tcm and explain how to copy it into the macros path or they just load it with the above procedure. The TCM files are compiled binary files and cannot be read in a text editor - we've all seen and had an MS Word virus - do you trust the sender. I like to supply the source code, but that means you need to know how to create a VBA macro. Tip: Save you're drawing as a template if you need to load a macro with every new drawing.

Figure 4

Let's create a new VBA macro - start a new drawing.

Tools

VBA Macros

Macros

Over type the project name with (say) helloworld

Press New this time

Press Editor

You should see the helloworld project in the Project Pane

Insert Module

From the properties pane rename the Module to (say) hellomodule

Figure 5

Figure 6/i>

now copy and paste the functions below into the VBA editor


Sub helloworld()

MsgBox "Hello World"
Application.ActiveDrawing.Graphics.AddText "Hello World", 0, 0, 0, 10
ActiveDrawing.ActiveView.ZoomToExtents

End Sub

Figure 7

File - Save helloworld

Minimize the VBA editor

You should now see the tabbed dialog appear at the forefront of TC and press helloworld.

Figure 8

Note it is possible to run a subroutine from the VBA editor, but it will execute the code and return to the editor so either file and close to TC or minimize the editor and run you macro from the tabbed dialog. If you close your tabbed dialog then you can still see the macros from the Tools - macros menu. The tabbed dialog will return when you start a new drawing.

If your program errors then the VBA editor will highlight the point where program was halted - you'll need press Reset (from the Run menu) and then correct the error before attempting to execute the macro again

Let's briefly look at the code and rewrite it a little. The below example contains comments which should make the code easier to follow and maintain (I'm normally lazy when it comes to comments and documentation. I hope you do as I say and not as I do).


Sub helloworldagain()
'remarks/comments are made after the apostrophe


Dim App As Application 'TurboCAD Top level object

Dim drg As Drawing     'Where all the business will be done
Dim t As Graphic        'We'll use this to store some text
Dim l As New Graphic       'We'll use this to store a line (New is optional)

'too many ways of doing the same thing in VB
Dim BB As BoundingBox  'Special helper objects
Dim s As String        'Conventional VB string 256 chars

s = InputBox("Hello", "My first app", "type your name here") 'Conventional VB

Set App = IMSIGX.Application 'setting a reference (not a new object)
Set drg = App.ActiveDrawing  'just saves us from typing it out all the time

Set t = drg.Graphics.AddText(s, 0, 10, 0, 10)  'this will add a new graphic to the drawing

t.Properties("PenColor").Value = RGB(255, 0, 0) 'now we set the properties - layer,color etc

Set BB = t.CalcBoundingBox 'Get TC to calculate the bounding box
'Because I used new in the Dim statement I don't need to use Set
l = drg.Graphics.AddLineSingle(BB.Min.X, BB.Min.Y, 0, BB.Max.X, BB.Min.Y, 0) ' adding a line graphic
l.Properties("Penstyle").Value = "DASHED"  'the properties are well documented

l.Properties("Pencolor").Value = RGB(0, 0, 255) 'or you could probe them with code

drg.ActiveView.ZoomToExtents  'the drawing also has properties
'if you've created and object or reference to an object then you get rid of it

Set l = Nothing
Set BB = Nothing

Set t = Nothing
Set drg = Nothing
Set App = Nothing

End Sub

Figure 9

I guess if you're new to VBA the above example looks a little complex. But that's it in a nutshell - you can connect to TC and use its objects. Learn a few more TC objects and bit more conventional VB like for next,loop until, arrays etc then add a dose of mathematics and hopefully you can automate many tedious drawing tasks.

I'm working on the Advanced TC VBA in 60 Seconds web page at the moment. How to use and probe more complex objects for undocumented methods and properties plus working in a 3D world.

TC bundles a score of good VBA examples and there are several good sources on the web. 99/100 you'll just need to tweak those macros to suit your problem.

You've seen those books out-there Teach yourself D++# in 1 hour which I always believed should be against the trades descriptions act. When I say crash VBA in 60 seconds I mean it is possible to crash TC out. I've never caused TC any harm yet, but remember to save your drawing before trying anything too wild.

Ty Harness

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