Create Plugin for AutoCAD 2012

[dominicthoppil]

Hi

 I need to create one Plugin for AutoCAD 2012. I created one plugin for AutoCAD 2007 using .NET 2.0 . I would like to know which is the correct .NET framework I should use for creating a plugin for AutoCAD 2012. For Ex. [.NET 2.0, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5 etc] ?

If possible can I get a link to any autodesk official page detailing about the .NET frameworks ?

Regards

Dominic

[norman.yuan · Accepted solution]

Technically, you can use any of the versons of .NET you listed (2.0 to 4.5).

However, if you use 4.x, make sure in acad.exe.config you have

<supportedRuntime version="v4.x"/>

in the <startup /> section.

With that said, using .NET4.5 with Acad2012 (or even Acad2013) is not recommended/not supported: after all, .NET 4.5 is released after Acad2013's release.

Autodesk's claim that AutoCAD would use latest version of .NET ends after AutoCAD 2009/.NET3.x. Since Acad2012's .NET API is built on .NET3.x (2.0 runtime, 3.x is just additional functionalities that run on top of 2.0), if you do not specify <supportedRuntime version=4.0 />, Acad2012 uses .NET2.0/3.x.

Acad2012 installation has <supportedRuntime version=4.0 /> set as default. So, basically you would target your Acad plugin development at .NET4.0. If you choose to target .NET3.x for some reasons, make sure <supportedRuntime version=4.0 /> is removed from acad.exe.config. You can use either VS2010 or VS2012.

[dominicthoppil]

Hi

Thank you for your valuable reply.

Regards

Dominic