AutoCAD 2015 .NET Wizard

[BlackBox_]

I keep forgetting to post things like this here, instead of at other forums; apologies for the duplication.

After reading Kean state that we need to use Visual Studio 2012 or 2013 for AutoCAD 2015 products:

"Do bear in mind that to target .NET 4.5 – which is a requirement to use the API enhancements in AutoCAD 2015 – you will need to use Visual Studio 2012 or 2013: VS2010 cannot target .NET 4.5. (ObjectARX developers will have to use the toolset from VS2012 to compile their C++ modules, as that’s the compiler being used to build AutoCAD.) I’m personally now using VS2013 as a primary IDE, but make use of the VS2012 toolset when building ObjectARX modules."

... I installed Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate from MSDN. That said, I noticed something curious with the 2015 wizard - I should note that all of my solutions open, debug, and compile just fine, but there seems to be something wonky with the 2015 .NET Wizard (MSI dated 11/19/2013) for new projects.

Is it just me, or does anyone else have an issue with the new wizard, where the 2015 C# project template is only visible when .NET Framework 4.0 is specified in the New Project dialog, whereas the 2015 VB project template is visible when .NET Framework 4.5 is specified?

[BlackBox_]

I know you guys are short staffed at the moment, however, could someone from Autodesk, ADN, etc. confirm this?

Cheers

[Balaji_Ram]

Hi,

I do not see this behavior in my system. 

The Visual Basic and C# templates appear only when the .Net framework is 4.5 and not in 4.0.

I am not sure if this affects the results - I installed AutoCAD 2015 .Net wizard in a system that already had VS 2012 and VS 2013 Professional installed in it.

Regards,

Balaji

[Balaji_Ram]

Just tried on another system that only had VS 2012 and the .Net wizard for 2015 installed. After I installed VS 2013 in it, the templates did not appear at all. I think that is expected since the wizard did not place the templates for VS 2013 to find.

So had to uninstall the .Net wizard and reinstall it for the templates to appear in VS 2013.

Sorry, not sure what else could be causing this problem in your system. Does a reinstall of the .Net wizard change the behavior ?

Regards,

Balaji

[BlackBox_]

---

@Balaji_Ram wrote:

Sorry, not sure what else could be causing this problem in your system. Does a reinstall of the .Net wizard change the behavior ? 

---

Hi Balaji,

Yes, I have tried uninstalling, and re-installing the 2015 wizard.

Interestingly, prior to uninstall, I had extracted a copy of the C# template. After uninstall, the extracted template did show up for 4.5 Framework. So, I re-installed the wizard, and then both the .ZIP re-installed and the extracted copy were no longer visible under 4.5 Framework, and only visible under 4.0 Framework.

[Balaji_Ram · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I do not see any other reason why this would happen unless the project template is incorrect for some reason.

The information that controls when the template has to appear inside Visual Studio is embedded in the Visual Studio Project template file. 

Can you please check if there is something wrong with that file ?

You will find the template install path under the following key in Registry :
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 -> UserProjectTemplatesLocation

In my system, this points to C:\Users\<My User name>\Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Templates\ProjectTemplates

Under this folder, you will find the "Visual Basic\Autodesk" and "Visual C#\Autodesk" sub folders with the project templates.

Please unzip the file, and open "MyTemplate.vstemplate" file in an editor. This file should have the framework specified as

<RequiredFrameworkVersion>4.5</RequiredFrameworkVersion>
<MaxFrameworkVersion>4.5</MaxFrameworkVersion>

This will ensure that the project template only appears if it is 4.5

Since you mention that it works ok for the C# template, maybe comparing the template file under "visualC#\Autodesk" will be of some help.

Regards,

Balaji

[BlackBox_]

---

@Balaji_Ram wrote:

Hello,

I do not see any other reason why this would happen unless the project template is incorrect for some reason.

The information that controls when the template has to appear inside Visual Studio is embedded in the Visual Studio Project template file. 

Can you please check if there is something wrong with that file ?

You will find the template install path under the following key in Registry :
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 -> UserProjectTemplatesLocation

In my system, this points to C:\Users\<My User name>\Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Templates\ProjectTemplates

Under this folder, you will find the "Visual Basic\Autodesk" and "Visual C#\Autodesk" sub folders with the project templates.

Please unzip the file, and open "MyTemplate.vstemplate" file in an editor. This file should have the framework specified as

<RequiredFrameworkVersion>4.5</RequiredFrameworkVersion>
<MaxFrameworkVersion>4.5</MaxFrameworkVersion>

This will ensure that the project template only appears if it is 4.5

Since you mention that it works ok for the C# template, maybe comparing the template file under "visualC#\Autodesk" will be of some help.

Regards,

Balaji

---

That's the issue, Balaji; the My Template.vstemplate file in ..\Visual C#\Autodesk\ directory.

Among several differences, both the RequiredFrameworkVersion, and MaxFrameworkVersion XmlNodes are missing from AutoCAD 2015 CSharp plug-in.zip, dated 2013-11-19... Here's a quick side-by-side comparison:

[Edit] - The forums scale the image, and it is not selectable to view full-size, so here's a link to do just that.

Adding said XmlNodes, and values does correct the issue.

Cheers

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I had a similair issue, in which the templates were not visible in VS2015 using AutoCad dotnet file 2017 (finsing th VB templates for target .Net 4.5).

The issue was solved on my side, following the solution instructions, but then simply unzipping the zip file in the template folder (nothing else).

Maybe VS was having security issues reading the zip automatically.

Gr, Ingmar