KozMos Resource Base

  Useful resource for VisualLISP programming

• LOCKUP.LSP
• XLOCK.LSP
• VLTBL-GET-CELL-MTEXT
• VISUAL LISP-EXCEL BIBLE
• Copy and Paste within same/different AcDbTable(s)
• AcDbTablePack

LOCKUP: Lock DWG by converting objects into MINSERT unnamed block

        LOCKUP.LSP is posted to me from SPAUG by answering a question on protecting the DWG data. The design purpose of Lockup is to convert all objects into one MINSERT block, this is an unnamed minserted block, so common explode command will NOT explode it.
        Lockup is very easy to UNLOCK. But it is still a good idea and utility to lock data to common (not expert) AutoCAD users. 
        Following is the source code of LOCKUP.LSP:

        View source codes of LOCKUP HERE!

XLock: Lock lines in DWG by converting them into space texts with underline

        We have met the situation to provide real AutoCAD DWG files to our clients. But this may be dangerous in protection our drawing data. If any other one takes our DWG file, what they do may be only change some TEXT contents so that they would finish the design very similar with ours. This is NOT what we want.
If we can call this a problems, we may be confused by this for a long time. KozMos has tried many methods to transfer the drawing data from common objects into another entity types. (such as convert ARC/Circle into line segment, convert line into 3DFACE or TRACE or SOLID). All of these methods faced a common problem: the converted objects may be unlocked. And the convert procedure will cause a very long time, even got fatal errors on AutoCAD drawing data. Before XLOCK, we can only use AutoCAD WMFOUT and WMFIN to convert all objects into LWPolylines as the most simple solution on lock.
        The design idea of XLOCK comes from an occasion situation. Based on the study of AutoCAD's TXT.SHX on spacebar underline location, KozMos developed XLOCK which will use a TEXT underline to substitute common line. By this conversion, the clients will lose the ability to get the two end points of "LINES". As another features, the clients will also fail to use AutoCAD common OFFSET/TRIM/EXTEND commands to modify the certain "LINES". This will REALLY make the further modification more hard and difficult. And it is the PROTECT clue of XLock.
        The routine was enhanced to convert lines nested in block definition into text underline in one command and explode all complex entities such as dimension, mtext and mlines into more simple lines and texts so that the later processing will do more lines in order to make the drawing more complex.
        As another interesting effects, command XL0 can remove all the TEXT underlines, the drawing will be very "EMPTY" without any lines, but it DO have data. Do you know how to open it? Run XL1, and you will get all lines appeared.

        Press HERE to view source codes of XLOCK.LSP.

AcDbTable: Get the MTEXT entity name of picked AcDbTable cell

        It is very hard to get the nested MTEXT in AcDbTable. In fact,  we even can not get the nest MTEXT object because Autodesk did not provide us the way. So we MUST do this in a very special way. We can use the NENTSELP or NENTSEL function and pick the MTEXT object, then we can get the MTEXT object. It is absolutely unacceptable if we have to pick the MTEXT each time, but we can call NENTSELP with an indicated point without picking it.
        Our special method to get the cell content MTEXT object is based on the following conditions and steps:

• We can get the MTEXT content via AcDbTable's "GetText" method;
• We can get the four boundary corner points of an AcDbTable cell via AcDbTable's "GetCellExtent" method;
• By dividing the cell Length and Height into 10 parts, we can build a 10x10 points list;
• Map the points list to (nentselp point) function to see if we can get a return value.
• If there is a value returned (maybe a border line is picked), check if it is a MTEXT with the same "TextString" as the AcDbTable cell content, if so, it is the MTEXT object we want to get.

    Following is KozMos's real executive Visual LISP codes to do so:

(Defun vltbl-get-cell-mtext (tbl row col   /  xsub-nentselp-mtext xsub-divide-lists str ptx p1 p2 p3 p4 dx dy dd px py vvv rtn)
  (Defun xsub-nentselp-mtext (pt str / val rtn)
    (if    (and (setq val (nentselp pt))
            (setq val (car val))
            (= (cdr (assoc 0 (entget val))) "MTEXT")
            (= (vla-get-textstring (vlax-ename->vla-object val)) str)
       )
      (setq rtn val)
    )
    rtn
  )
  (defun xsub-divide-lists (lst n / element item new)
    (foreach element (reverse lst)
      (setq item (cons element item))
      (if (= (length item) n)
       (setq new  (cons item new) item nil)
      )
    )
    new
  )
  (setq    tbl (vlax-ename->vla-object tbl)
       str (vlax-invoke-method tbl "GetText" row col)
       ptx (xsub-divide-lists
             (vlax-safearray->list
              (vlax-variant-value
                (vla-getcellextents tbl row col 0)
              )
             )
             3
           )
  )
  (if (setq rtn (not (equal str "")))
    (progn
      (setq p1      (trans (nth 0 ptx) 0 1)
           p2    (trans (nth 1 ptx) 0 1)
           p3    (trans (nth 2 ptx) 0 1)
           p4    (trans (nth 3 ptx) 0 1)
           dd    (* 0.02 (distance p1 p4))
           p1    (polar p1 (angle p1 p4) dd)
           p4    (polar p4 (angle p4 p1) dd)
           p2    (polar p2 (angle p2 p3) dd)
           p3    (polar p3 (angle p3 p2) dd)
           dx    (* 0.1 (abs (- (car p1) (car p2))))
           dy    (* 0.1 (abs (- (cadr p1) (cadr p3))))
           px    (car p1)
           py    (cadr p1)
           vvv  nil
      )
      (repeat 10
       (setq px (car p1))
       (repeat    10
         (setq vvv (cons (list px py) vvv))
         (setq px (+ px dx))
       )
       (setq py (- py dy))
      )
      (while vvv
       (if (null (setq rtn (xsub-nentselp-mtext (car vvv) str)))
         (setq vvv (cdr vvv))
         (setq vvv nil)
       )
      )
    )
  )
  rtn
)

Copy and Paste within (different) AcDbTable(s)

        We can use system Copy-Paste operation to copy contents between AcDbTable(s). Following is the step to do so:

• Select source cells range and then press Ctrl+C for copy or Ctrl+X for Cut.
• Select a destination cells range in same or different AcDbTable (Make sure that the destination and source range have the same columns' number and rows' number).
• Press Ctrl+V to paste the AcDbTable data in clipboard into destination cells range.

        If merged cells in source range can not match merged cells in destination range, the merged cells will not be transferred. If the destination range are all single cells or have the same merged cells information as source range, the merged cells will be transferred.

        If we call Ctrl+V in an empty area, a new AcDbTable will be created.

//Koz Jono Yeoh//

Copyright(C) 1994-2009 KozMos Inc
All rights reserved.