Lisp Management

[plackowski]

This is sort of a broad topic, but how do you manage lisps for larger organizations, especially with the addition of working from home? We've got an outdated setup, with over 100 lisp routines in a series of drop-down menus, many of which are no longer in use. Some are loaded as part of our start-up processes, others are loaded from a network folder when they are chosen from the menus. Others are only used by one person, and no one else even knows they exist. Calling it a mess is an understatement. Some commands run particularly slow when used from work from home laptops, because the commands are loaded from the network each time.

 

I'm envisioning a solution where we could copy our lisp folder and CUI files onto a remote user's computer, and only have to repath one or two items to allow them to access all the tools without an internet connection. Is this feasible?

 

In the same vain, has anyone had any luck using the Autoload command to accomplish aspects of this?

[pkenewell]

In the past, I have used a file-syncing method that checks for new files on a server each time AutoCAD is started, then copies and overwrites older versions locally on the client machine. Problem is they have to be connected to the server to get updates. This could also be done from a website or FTP site, but they would then need to be connected to the Internet.

The routine could be tailored to specific users by a one time install request, then the acad.lsp file could be custom for syncing different files based on the specific user.

 

That's the best advice I can give. There are methods available in Visual LISP and com API access to windows in order to connect to an FTP site to check for newer versions of files.

Edited October 12, 2020 by pkenewell

[BIGAL]

pkenewell is on the money but as you have suggested a more manual way, we had laptops so they had to work remote from network, we did as you have suggested and copy all lisps to a new directory, then set support paths. The laptops had 2 icons office and remote and used profiles to set correct pathing.

 

I used partial menus read "Custom menus" so had the source for these. The only issue I see is if your cuix has hardcoded directory names rather than just (load "mylisp") 

 

You can run a lisp that will copy all files use a "shell" command xcopy, set the correct support paths, then load the cui.

 

Here is a sample you can do more options, removed to match your questions. Can add menuload also. 

 

NEED TO SAVE WORKSPACE

 

(setq *files*  (vla-get-files  (vla-get-preferences (vlax-get-Acad-object))))

;make new support paths exist + new
(setq paths (vla-get-SupportPath *files*))
(setq XXXXpaths "L:\\autodesk\\supportfiles;L:\\autodesk\\lisp;L:\\autodesk\\fonts;")
(setq newpath (strcat XXXXpaths paths))
(vla-put-SupportPath *files* newpath)

; template location
(vla-put-QnewTemplateFile *files* "L:\\Autodesk\\c3d Templates\\xxxx-2019.dwt")

; trusted paths
(setq oldtrust (getvar 'trustedpaths))
(setq newtrust (strcat oldtrust ";" "L:\\Autodesk..."))
(setvar 'trustedpaths newtrust)

(princ "All Done")
(alert "Run user script for toolbars")

 

Edited October 12, 2020 by BIGAL