Category:AutoCAD VBA

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) allows Visual Basic (VB) programmers to work in a familiar Visual Basic environment. Those not familiar with the Visual Basic environment will find that the interface is easy to use and straightforward.

Why would one use VBA in AutoCAD 2000 when LISP is so well supported in AutoCAD? Three reasons:

     Speed

To quote Autodesk -- "VBA is fast. VBA is hosted by AutoCAD and does not have the associated overhead of calling out to a separate process. In internal benchmarks, VBA is significantly faster than AutoLISP® or Visual Basic running as a separate application. The execution speed is very close to a compiled C++ ObjectARX DLL-based extension." Programs created with Visual Basic for Applications execute faster than programs created outside of an application. For example, a VBA program will run faster than the same code setup as a standalone VB executable (exe) program.

     Ease of use. 

Visual Basic/VBA interface is easy to learn and use. VBA-enabled programs (e.g. Word 2000, Office 2000 Excel 2000, AutoCAD 14, Visio, IntelliCAD98, etc) allow the user to learn and program in the same Visual Basic environment.

     Universality 

VBA has become broadly accepted as the Windows-based customization tool of choice. The VBA interface resembles Visual Basic 5 (VB5). AutoCAD 2000 users only need to learn one programming environment (VBA) to be able to program with VB in all VBA enabled programs. The VBA editor included with AutoCAD 2000 uses the same programming environment used in Office 2000 applications. LISP only works in a handful of CADD programs. LISP (with its brackets) is clunky, as well as hard to learn.