BricsCAD SheetSetManager COM/LISP API

Since version V21, BricsCAD provides a COM interface to the SheetSetManager, compatible with AutoCAD's SheetSetManager COM interface.

The implementation of this interface in BricsCAD follows usual COM design rules - as result, the interface is also accessible from Lisp and VB/VBA, while AutoCAD's COM interface is implemented in a rather unusual way, which does not allow to access it from AutoLISP in AutoCAD.

This chapter gives an overview on all the particular interfaces; we also provide Lisp sample code snippets in "<LDSP>/SheetSetManager-Lisp-API/LISP Sample Code" folder.

LISP application code can access the SheetSetManager root interface by :
(vla-GetInterfaceObject cad "BricscadSm.AcSmSheetSetMgr")

VB/VBA/C/C++/Delphi applications can access the SheetSetManager COM interface by referencing the "axbricscadsm.dll" file.

For experienced developers, we also provide the "axbricscadsm.idl" for reviewing and as reference.

The SheetSetManager COM interface (for all programming languages, incl. LISP) is only available under Windows.

Special Notice for Programmers :
The SheetSetManager COM interface as provided by AutoCAD always & only uses *Methods*, not Properties ... this is formally valid, but rather unprofessional, indicating that the implementers lack some profound knowledge about COM interface design; as a second design flaw, the declared COM interface uses *IUnknown* class instead of IDispatch for all object classes - this poor implementation limits the usage of that COM API under AutoCAD.
Unfortunately, we had to stick with that design, for compatibility reasons ...
BUT the BricsCAD implementation uses *IDispatch* as base object class, which allows access to the SheetSetManager COM interface by all programming languages (incl. Lisp)-

Actually, the following SheetSetManager COM interfaces are provides :

Because the BricsCAD SheetSetManager COM interface complies to common COM design rules, it is perfectly possible, to automatically generate LISP COM wrapper functions by (vlax-import-type-library) :

(vlax-import-type-library  :tlb-filename  "axbricscadsm.dll"  :methods-prefix  "ssm-"  :properties-prefix  "ssm-"  :constants-prefix  "ssm:")

Just to note, that only methods will be generated (as no "property" functions are defined by the COM definitions).