Making sure new layout has a Viewport when created

By Virupaksha Aithal

An AutoCAD setting in the Options dialog controls behavior of adding a viewport to new layouts. You can turn off the creating viewports in newly created layouts. You can find the setting along this path:

‘Options’ dialog
    -> ‘Display’ tab
        -> ‘Layout Elements’ group
            -> ‘Create Viewport in New Layouts’ check box.

This can be controlled using AutoCAD ActiveX API too. It’s ThisDrawing.Application.Preferences.Display.LayoutCreateViewport. The following code does the work exactly:

[CommandMethod("LayoutTest")]
public static void LayoutTest()
{
    Object acadObject = Application.AcadApplication;
 
 
    object preferences = 
            acadObject.GetType().InvokeMember("Preferences",
            BindingFlags.GetProperty,
            null, acadObject, null);
 
    object display = 
                preferences.GetType().InvokeMember("Display",
                BindingFlags.GetProperty,
                null, preferences, null);
 
    object layoutProperty = 
                display.GetType().InvokeMember("LayoutCreateViewport",
                BindingFlags.GetProperty,
                null, display, null);
    //now set the value to true.
    if (Convert.ToBoolean(layoutProperty) == false)
    {
        object[] dataArry = new object[1];
        dataArry[0] = true;
        display.GetType().InvokeMember("LayoutCreateViewport",
                          BindingFlags.SetProperty,
                          null, display, dataArry);
    }
 
}