AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies®

Chapter 2. Extending AutoCAD LT

This chapter takes a look at extending AutoCAD LT. Extending AutoCAD LT is similar to extending AutoCAD, but the choices you have are more limited. What exactly do I mean by extending AutoCAD LT? Extending means adding custom functionality beyond what comes out of the box. Extending could be creating a custom toolbar, or it could be a way to save drawing files so they can be used in companion programs that allow you to perform a specific task. In this chapter, you look at how you can customize AutoCAD LT, discover what object enablers are, and find out what utilities are available from Autodesk and third-party developers.

Customizing AutoCAD LT

Although it's true that AutoCAD LT lacks many of the methods of customization that AutoCAD offers, it does still offer some nice customization options. As mentioned in Chapter 1 of this minibook, AutoCAD LT doesn't support programming languages such as AutoLISP/Visual LISP, VB/VBA, VB .NET, C#, or C++ with ObjectARX or Action Recorder. Even without the capability to use programming languages and Action Recorder to extend AutoCAD LT, you can create script files, custom linetypes and hatch patterns, blocks, and menu customization, and use a few other customization methods.

It's all in the script

Script files are ASCII or plain-text files that are created with a text editor such as Notepad. Script files contain command and command option sequences and are used to reduce the number of repetitive or redundant steps ...