The basic output functions are acedPrompt(), which displays a message on the AutoCAD prompt line, and acutPrintf(), which displays text on the text screen. The acutPrintf() function's calling sequence is equivalent to the standard C library function printf(). It is provided as a separate function, because on some platforms the standard C printf() causes the output message to mangle the AutoCAD graphics screen. (Remember that the acdbFail() function also displays messages on the text screen.)
The size of a string displayed by acedPrompt() should not exceed the length of the graphics screen's prompt line; typically this is no more than 80 characters. The size of a string displayed by acutPrintf() must not exceed 132 characters, because this is the size of the string buffer used by the acutPrintf() function (133 bytes, with the last byte reserved for the null character).
The acedMenuCmd() function provides control of the display of the graphics screen menu. The acedMenuCmd() function activates one of the submenus of the current menu. It takes a string argument, str, that consists of two parts, separated by an equal sign, in the form:
"section=submenu"
where section indicates the menu section and submenu indicates which submenu to activate within that section.
For example, the following function call causes the OSNAP submenu defined in the current customization file to appear on the screen.
acedMenuCmd("S=OSNAP");
In a similar way, the following function call assigns the submenu MY‑BUTTONS to the BUTTONS menu, and activates it.
acedMenuCmd("B=MY-BUTTONS");
In Release 12 and earlier versions of AutoCAD, you could assign any kind of menu to any other. For example, you could assign a SCREEN menu to a POP menu. With Release 13 and later versions of AutoCAD, you can assign menus to other menus on the Windows platform only if they are of the same type. A POP menu can be assigned only to another POP menu, and a SCREEN menu to another SCREEN menu. You can specify the menu in detail, because Windows loads partial menus.
Calling acedMenuCmd() and passing “P1=test.numeric” assigns POP menu 12 to POP menu 2, assuming that a customization group named “test” is currently loaded and it has a menu with the aliases “POP12” and “numeric” defined.
The following call shows how to activate a drop-down menu and then display it.
acedMenuCmd("P1=NUMERIC");
The call to acedMenuCmd() assigns the submenu NUMERIC to drop-down menu 1 (in the upper-left corner of the graphics screen).
See the AutoCAD Customization Guide for more information on custom menus.