topic Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project in Inventor Programming Forum

Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 16:41:20 GMT

Hi,

I'm coming up against a bit of resistance with my company's system admins, trying to install Visual Studio. I might get it eventually, but right now I have to go without.

But I need to start looking into creating DLL's to help me manage our codebase.

I was wondering if anyone had a very basic sample or boilerplate project I could take a look at, which I'd then compile into my DLL's using something else.

I've never configured a VB.NET project before, and I figure who better to know what sort of configuration is best suited to Inventor/iLogic than the people here.

Thanks

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

tyler.warner — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 17:01:26 GMT

A handful of useful resources are included with your Inventor program, including sample add-ins or standalone applications in VB.NET, C#, etc. You can find those by running the below installer according to your current Inventor version. There is a detailed walkthrough here.

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2022\SDK\developertools.msi

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@JelteDeJong has some great instructions on his site for how to create & modify an add-in here.

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Or you can find an older VS template from Brian Ekins here & related blog/paper here.

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 17:21:41 GMT

Oh, that's amazing, I had no idea. Thanks!

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 19:10:37 GMT

As for installing Visual Studio, do you happen to know what the minimum requirements are?

It seems like I'd need the .NET Desktop Development package. Is that correct? Is there anything else recommended?

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

tyler.warner — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 19:41:28 GMT

That is correct, the .NET Desktop Development package is what you'll need. Visual Studio Community is free & can be downloaded from the Microsoft site. The version won't really matter, 2017, 2019 or 2022 can most likely be used without any issues, though the UI & tools are slightly different depending on the VS version. This article was posted above but has some helpful explanations for why things are done the way they are if you're looking at some of the developer tools. This video is also a helpful step-by-step guide through getting starting your add-in development journey.

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 15:52:18 GMT

It seems like Visual Studio 2022 (Community Edition, the free version, at least) might be incompatible with the developertools.msi in the installation directory, as it continues to say no version of VS could be found when trying to run it, and it looks like no other version of VS is free to download.

Is there any chance you could post an archive of the boiler plate files it generates, so I could take a look at the configuration files?

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

tyler.warner — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 16:01:22 GMT

@Anonymous take a look at this post. It should solve the problem you're running into.

You can download any version (VS 2017, 2019, 2022) of the community edition & it will be free.

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 16:17:18 GMT

For all I searched I couldn't find a link to download VS Community 2019 (I'm not sure this ever existed. I think it was rebranded for the 2022 version from 'Express', which is no longer available). The post you linked refers to VS 2019, which is the paid version.

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

tyler.warner — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 16:24:16 GMT

Here are two links you can try: (link 1), (link 2)

Re: Sample/boilerplate Visual Studio VB.NET project

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 16:40:44 GMT

Thanks, I will, and I'll report back or else mark that as another solution.