hello:

Dialog Control Language, or DCL, always seems to frighten off a lot of Lispers. I admit, it did me too until I was forced into a situation were I had to learn it and quickly. (make it work, or you're out boy!)

Well, I would hate for any of you to be in the same situation, so for the next few issues, I'll be taking you step by step, hand in hand, through the minefield of the DCL language. I will share your pain and misery, and will wipe away your tears, I will… ("Hey Kenny, get on with it!"). Oops, sorry!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I will suffer… (thump!).
As I was saying before I got this black eye, there are a few terms that you need to familiarise yourself with before we get stuck into some coding. Firstly, the dialog box itself is known as a "dialog definition". Secondly, each "control" on the dialog is known as a "tile definition". Thirdly, each "property" of a "tile" is known as a dialog "attribute". And fourthly, each "method" of a "tile" is known as an "action expression". Why? Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that it will help you immensely in understanding the AutoCAD DCL reference book if you have a basic knowledge of these terms. Right, enough waffle, I'm bored and my eye's sore. Let's have a look at some DCL coding and design ourselves a simple dialog box.

Copy and paste this into Notepad and save it as test_dcl1.dcl. Oh, before I forget, please ensure that you save this file, and it's namesake AutoLisp file, into a directory that is within your AutoCAD search path.

For more information breached to the following link:
http://7rb.us/view.php?p= 253