How To Implement AutoCAD Color Chooser In External Application

Question

Goal

I want to be able to access AutoCAD's Color chooser from an external application. This means that I will not be using AutoCAD to make the color chooser dialog popup. Instead, I will be using a VB.Net application to manage these colors.

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Current Situation

As for now, I have no idea where to start. Do I need to import a specific library to make this work? Is it even possible to do this without AutoCAD running?

Answer 1

.NET has a basic built-in color picker control if you want to drive outside of AutoCAD:

System.Windows.Forms.ColorDialog

You'll likely need a helper class/extension methods for converting ARGB colors to AutoCAD colors. Although may find it better to just roll your own. Use IlSpy, DotPeek, or .NET Reflector to look at how the AutoDesk class gets instanciated/used.