TABLE OF CONTENTS The Visual in Visual LISP comes from its development environment. Before Visual LISP and its IDE (Integrated Development Environment), AutoLISP developers had to use text editors or word processors, which know nothing about LISP syntax and requirements. Testing involved loading the files into AutoCAD to see whether they worked. Debugging tools were left to the invention of the programmer. To improve this situation, independent developers created tools, one of which evolved into Visual LISP.
The Visual LISP IDE (VLIDE) consists of a set of tools that exist in a window separate from AutoCAD's main window. This separate window contains multiple child windows that help you manage source files and projects as well as test programs. The term visual is used because the windows use colors and icons so that you can navigate quickly from one task to another.
A variety of tools are provided in the IDE, including parentheses matching, automatic indentation, color-coding of source text, dialog box previews, a function search utility, and symbol tracking. Programmers are the users in an IDE, so all its tools are designed to make their job more productive.
Because you will be using the VLIDE to create new programs, it is important that you know the basics of how to use it from the onset. You start by becoming familiar with the various windows, toolbars, and terms in the VLIDE. Then you look into the basic operations involved when developing programs: creating files, editing files, testing programs, and hunting down syntax errors.
