How can i make a CorelDraw addin under Visual C++

Hi,
I have found on this page a great example for creating an addin under Visual Basic (CropMarks), it works perfectly, but i want to make something bigger and I don't think that I'm able to make it under Visual Basic, so I work on it to make it under Visual C++. Can you please help me?

andrej

[Alex]

Andrej,

Personally I wouldn't bother with creating an addin. It has way too many limitations (you can't add it to a toolbar, or anywhere in the menu except for the default location under Tools>Visual Basic>Addins). Instead, create an EXE or DLL in C++ and have a macro (in a separate GMS file) invoke it. By doing this, you can add the macro to a toolbar and still have the full control from C++. Personally I would go with the DLL approach because when you call the DLL from VBA, your code will run in CorelDRAW process' address space which will make it run much faster (due to data marshaling when calling from out-of-process).

But either way it should be pretty straight forward to control CorelDRAW from a C++ program.

I find that VC++ #import approach is the easiest.

Just copy the Coreldrw110.tlb into the same project folder where your application sources are and then add the following directive at the top of your CPP file:

#import "coreldrw110.tlb" no_namespace named_guids

This will generate a lot of helper classes for all CorelDRAW's classes. You then can start working with them like this:

try
{
  IDrawApplicationPtr app(CLSID_Application);
  IDrawDocumentPtr doc = app->CreateDocument();
  IDrawShapePtr s = doc->ActiveLayer->CreateEllipse2(2, 2, 1, 0, 90, 90, VARIANT_FALSE);
  s->Fill->UniformColor->RGBAssign(255, 0, 0);
}
catch(_com_error &e)
{
  MessageBox(e.ErrorMessage(), "Error", MB_OK | MB_ICONSTOP);
}

You see that it is quite the same as in VBA.

Thanks lot, that's what i need...