A Wizard for AutoCAD .NET Addin Development

It finally comes out a multi-page and real-wizard-sense wizard (AutoCAD .NET Addin Wizard) for AutoCAD .NET development.

It has a lot of benefits. Here are some so far:

• It supports both Visual Studio 2015, 2013 and 2012 in a single package.
• It supports both Visual Studio full-fledged and Community in a single package.
• It supports various .NET compliant languages such as Visual C#, VB.NET and Managed C++/CLI in a single wizard.
• It supports both 32 bit and 64 bit of AutoCAD on 32 bit and/or 64 bit of Windows.
• Users will not experience hassles during its installations or un-installations on Windows, old or new such as XP, Vista or Windows 7, 32 bit or 64 bit.
• It works with many different AutoCAD versions from 2019 back to 2007 in a single wizard.
• It works with various AutoCAD flavors such as AutoCAD Civil 3D, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Mechanical, AutoCAD Electrical and AutoCAD Architecture in a single wizard.
• It works with all available AutoCAD localized versions such as French, German, Spain, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Korean, and so on.
• It provides options for AutoCAD .NET assembly references and AutoCAD COM Interops.
• It can find and reference AutoCAD .NET assemblies and/or COM type libraries either statically from a specified location or dynamically from the installation of a specified AutoCAD or its flavor of any language.
• People do not have to worry about any version mismatch between .NET Framework and AutoCAD. AcadNetAddinWizard takes care of all these automatically.
• AcadNetAddinWizard imports all good and available AutoCAD .NET assemblies automatically once for all without unnecessarily having people check off anything.
• It imports many additional daily use .NET assemblies such as System.Core, System.Drawing, System.Xml.Linq, System.Windows.Forms and WindowsBase into the addin project automatically when the Visual Studio IDE allows and the .NET Framework version supports.
• We can start up AutoCAD to debug the resultant addin project once a proper AutoCAD or its flavor has been selected in the wizard.
• A test drawing can be opened up automatically right after AutoCAD starts up in case the DWG is properly specified in the wizard.
• The resultant assembly when being debugged will be loaded up into AutoCAD automatically.
• A newly defined command by the wizard can be specified to run automatically at the first moment in AutoCAD when things are ready.
• Both Extension Application and Command Method classes can be created automatically and, better, either can be bypassed during project creation.
• Besides project names, all other names and attributes can be specified at will as well, for instance, class names, command group, command name, help file, and help topic id for the command.
• The addin assembly can have a more meaningful name different from the addin project name at its very creation moment.
• The command can be specified as either document wide or application wide.
• The command flag attribute is defaulted as the most popular CommandFlags.Modal and actually can be changed to any good combinations of the available command flags.
• The wizard provides more intelligence to the command flag selections such as tooltip displaying for each flag, CommandFlags.Modal and CommandFlags.Transparent having to have one selected but not both, and much more!

• A ContextMenu Extensioner is provided to help implement the ContextMenuExtension interfaces.
• The context menu groups and items in the ContextMenu Extensioner can be designed at will, including item texts, nest levels (e.g. sub items, sub items of sub items, and even deeper), icons, checked or not, and the click events.
• Context menu icons can be defined from external icon files and will be turned into resources of the assembly automatically and intelligently.
• The Click event handler of each context menu item will be created and linked properly, automatically and intelligently.
• The ContextMenu Extensioner supports both C# and VB.NET.
• A Local Commands Creator is provided to help define localizable commands.
• The Local Commands Creator supports all the cultures and languages that AutoCAD supports. Just name a few here, Chinese, English, French, Germany, Italian, and Korean.
• All other CommandMethod options besides the very necessary global names and CommandFlags are also supported for each local command such as resource ids, help files, help topics, and context menus (ContextMenuExtension).
• The naming patterns of command method names, resource ids, and help topic ids can be built up by users at will.
• Some common code and debugging code such as database retrieving, editor retrieving, transaction starting and committing, message outputting, and exception handling will be created all there in case opted.
• All CommandFlags options and all available ContextMenuExtension classes will be collected into some friendly and intelligent list boxes or combo boxes for users to choose so that typos can all be omitted.
• All resource (.RESX) files along with command index ids and some default contexts will be created all automatically and linked with the commands and groups properly.
• The Local Commands Creator supports both C# and VB.NET.

• The List Functions Definer is provided to help define AutoCAD .NET LISP functions.
• The List Functions Definer supports both C# and VB.NET.
• The OptionsDialog Extensioner is provided to create the Options Dialog Extension code easily.
• The OptionsDialog Extensioner supports both C# and VB.NET.
• The Entity Jigger is provided to create the EntityJig code for any types of AutoCAD entities.
• The Entity Jigger supports both C# and VB.NET.
• The Draw Jigger is provided to create the DrawJig code easily and flexibly.
• The Draw Jigger supports both C# and VB.NET.
• The Application Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The Document Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The BlockTableRecord Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The Database Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The DBObject Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The DocumentCollection Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The DynamicLinker Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The Editor Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The GraphicsManager Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The LayerStateManager Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The LayoutManager Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The LongTransactionManager Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The PlotManager Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The Publisher Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The RibbonPaletteSet Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The RibbonServices Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• The UserConfigurationManager Event Handler item wizard is provided.
• All the event handler item wizards supports both C# and VB.NET.
• The ContextMenuExtension Attacher is provided as a coder.
• The Data Collector coder is provided.
• The Space Iterator coder is provided.
• The Symbol Iterator coder is provided.
• The Dictionary Iterator coder is provided.
• The Block Iterator coder is provided.
• The AutoCAD RegEdit Launcher is provided as a widget.
• The AutoCAD Locator is provided as a widget.

Download AutoCAD .NET Addin Wizard 

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Comments

[JeffH]

Thanks again for wizard and appreciate you sharing this useful tool.

Probably giving some useless info but just listing the steps that I did in case it might help discover the cause.

Windows 7 64bit and for AutoCAD2013 project.

I thought i have tried it before and it worked but if you create a project with wizard then right click project in solution explorer and select "Add new Item"
then choose Application events you get a
"Index outside the bounds array" message box followed by normal event item dialog but with not items in the list.

Not sure if it had anything to do with it but just before I I recieved that error the first time if you choose DocumentCollectionEvents then click next and click Cancel you recieve a "Object not set to a reference" error.

[Spiderinnet1]

JeffH, no problem. Also thanks for your loving and supporting for the tool.

In terms of the two issues, I am guessing you are using VB.NET, right? BTW, have you tried the same in C# and do the same features work fine there?

In addition, please make sure the latest AcadNetAddinWizard is used.

[JeffH]

No using C#
and thought I had the latest.
How can you tell if you have the latest

[Spiderinnet1]

JeffH, thx for the info again.

I remember in early builds it seemed to have problems like those. In terms of the latest build, you can download it from the same link. If you don't want to uninstall and reinstall in case the latest has already been there, you can compare the date and size of the installers.

If the problems are still there in the latest build and detailed steps be provided, I would be glad to try on my side.

[JeffH]

Thanks,
That what i basiclly do I click on link the file menu and Review revisions and look at date.

[Spiderinnet1]

JeffH, thanks again.

Reproduced the problem with the Application Events item wizard on my side. By the way, it seemed the RibbonServices Events item wizard had a similar issue. However, the DocumentCollection Events one worked fine on my side.

The issues can be expected fixed in the next build.

[JeffH]

Awesome,

The DocumentCollection works for me also but mentioned it because
If you select the DocumentCollection item
--The initial Dialog pops up
--Click Next
--Then dialog pops up with the list of checkboxs for selecting events
--Click Cancel
--Dialog pops up with "Object not set to a reference"

I tried the Application Item next and that is when I noticed the error.
So just mentioned the DocumentCollection item if somehow steps above changed some state that caused the Application item error.

[Spiderinnet1]

Thx again, Jeff. Though minor, it seems there is also an issue in the DocumentCollection Events item wizard. It will be addressed too in the next build.