topic Icons Disappear in my Autocad App in .NET Forum

Icons Disappear in my Autocad App

micle.space — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 07:46:59 GMT

Dear all,

I'm a newbie programmer for everything related to c#, WPF and Autocad, but what I've developed up to now is working well and my app is growing to unexpected level and this thanks to this forum and the help of some of you.

Now, I would like to collect my apps in a new wpf App I developed (developing) in a new project (as WPF project) and now I'm going to merge into my autocad solution.

This is done in order to have the Autocad solution structured as follow:

- SOLUTION

- PROJECT: Autocad App with just myCommand.cs

- PROJECT: Autocad Libraries (the collection of methods for interacting with Autocad)

- PROJECT: Project1

- PROJECT: Project2

- PROJECT: Project3.... and so on

the first project collects all CommandMethods and is structured as below:

[CommandMethod("PROJECT1",CommandFlags.Modal)] public void MyProject1() { Document doc = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument; Editor ed; if (doc != null) { ed = doc.Editor; Project1 project1 = new Project1(); AcAp.ShowModalWindow(project1); } } [CommandMethod("PROJECT2",CommandFlags.Modal)] public void MyProject2() { Document doc = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument; Editor ed; if (doc != null) { ed = doc.Editor; Project2 project2 = new Project2(); AcAp.ShowModalWindow(project2); } } //end so on....

each project is referenced in the project AutocadApp in order to load it in the Autocad environment.

Now this is the matter: if I run my app (as executable) in windows environment I can see my icons, if I run my app in Autocad environment (as dll) my icons disappear. (see the pics).

What is going on?

Re: Icons Disappear in my Autocad App

norman.yuan — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 15:59:58 GMT

Some thoughts on your question:

1. While .Net framework allows a project to share a component from EXE project by adding reference to that EXE project. In general, it is not a good practice. I assume (and do hope) that in your simplified code, "Project1" or "Project2" refer to a WPF Window (View) in the EXE projects, but not the EXE project's MainWindow (well, technically, being MainWindow or not itself isn't the issue. Rather, the business functionality of EXE's main view and a dialog view in AutoCAD would mostly be quite different).

Ideally, if an EXE app and your CAD app want to share UI components, it would be better to place the shared UI components, be it WPF Window, or WPF UserControl, in a separated DLL project, and then let CAD App project and the EXE project to reference the UI dll project.

2. If you use WPF, it will be very likely (or ought to be) that you use MVVM pattern. That is another reason to separate shared view components from Acad add-in and EXE project into its own project. then in either Acad addin or EXE, you may have different Model/ViewModel (more likely, different ViewModel) to work with the same view components to deal with possible workflow difference in AutoCAD and EXE app. IMO, it would not make much sense to use WPF, if MVVM pattern is not used, in most cases.

3. As you have already known that when showing UI in AutoCAD, you should use

Application.ShowModal[Modeless]Window()

instead of

Window.Show[ShowDialog]()

Here, AutoCAD API does something behind of scene: it replaces the view's icon with AutoCAD's icon (or AutoCAD vertical's icon), so that the Acad add-in would look more like Acad's native view. So, if you need to force your own icon, you could handle the view's "Loaded" event (and/or "Shown" even, if the view is Win form) and set your own icon there. Since you use WPF, it may also depend on how you load the form icon (binding?).

Re: Icons Disappear in my Autocad App

micle.space — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 06:31:19 GMT

Yes Norman you are right, in the sake of coinciseness I committed a carelessness... in my code solution is solution, projects are projects but in commandMethod I call the main window of that project, so the sample has to be corrected to:

.... MainWinProject1 mainWinproject1 = new MainWinProject1(); AcAp.ShowModalWindow(mainWinproject1); ....

So, summarizing, I start to develope my UI as win executable project (no Autocad features), when I'm sure that the behaviour with user input is ok (for example binding) I re-compile it as DLL, import the project in my autocad solution and refer the DLL to the autocad main project (CommandMethod descibed before).

At this point I can develop the autocad methods for my new application, and moreover I have all my apps in only one solution so I can update my Apps to the future Autocad releases all in once.

At the beginning I tried MVVM pattern, but is too difficult for my knowledge, next future...

Now to get back to main question, just a bit of quote:

This is a sample of how I load the icons in the Menu:

The folder "Images" is a folder in the local project. (in the MainProject the DLL is imported with "Copy Local = True").

I'm not a IconAddicted, so my question is just for understanding if my app is running properly or not, but your words raise my nosiness: does Autodesk release a xaml ResourceDictionary in order to set the UIs with autocad style?

if the Autocad API is so apprehensive to substitute (in my case delete) icons.... why don't collect the main win controls for a Autocad style?

Thanks again for your attention, my apps are working fine surely and mainly for your inputs with or without icons.

Re: Icons Disappear in my Autocad App

micle.space — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 11:41:04 GMT

ops... two dots lack in my Source path string:

now it works properly also in Autocad environment.

Re: Icons Disappear in my Autocad App

norman.yuan — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 16:24:13 GMT

Ah, I thought you were referring to the icon of the window/form, thus I said "...AutoCAD API does something behind of scene: it replaces the view's icon with AutoCAD's icon...". Now that your issue is with WPF binding could not find <Image...> control's source, this is a different issue: the reason is in the XAML, the "Source" attribute for <Image...> is not good for the Acad Add-in DLL. You see, the Acad add-in dll is not an independent EXE application, it is just a part of acad.exe application, and ideally, the add-in dll SHOULD BE in the same folder as acad.exe in order to make the

<Image Source="../Images/xxxx.png" /> work, as long as "../images" folder exists and the *.png file exists when AutoCAD runs. However, AutoCAD .NET API allows AutoCAD to load .ENT assemblies from different locations (loading its own accoremgd/acbdmgd/acmgd.dll from Acad location, and custom dlls from different location) So, you need to specify "Source" correctly for <Image.../>. As matter of fact, this is one of the frequently asked questions, if you search the Internet.

There was a recent discussion on this in this forum, which should help you:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/net/wpf-resources-can-t-be-loaded-correctly-in-autocad/m-p/9324422#M64936

The other approach I use for my WDF UI in AutoCAD add-in is to include the images in the DLL project's resources (i.e. embed the images in the compiled dll), so that my add-in is a "pure" dll, no need to deploy the image separately in a dedicated folder. Then, in my ViewModel code, I actually read the images from ResourceManager into a bindable properties of the ViewModel, so the image can be bound to the image control, like:

Hope this helps a bit.

Re: Icons Disappear in my Autocad App

micle.space — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 06:58:03 GMT

I have to tell you the true, I started programming including images into the resources content, then a day I read in a blog (general wpf/c# programming): "is a good practice to create a directory and copy pictures then load them by string connection...", but for sure now, I will follow your advice and I will come back to the old habits.

Re: Icons Disappear in my Autocad App

norman.yuan — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 10:47:34 GMT

@micle.space wrote:

I have to tell you the true, I started programming including images into the resources content, then a day I read in a blog (general wpf/c# programming): "is a good practice to create a directory and copy pictures then load them by string connection...", but for sure now, I will follow your advice and I will come back to the old habits.

If the output of the development is an EXE app, which is usually package for deployment, then it is "good practice". But for AutoCAD add-in, I'd rather not having extra folder for extra resources (images for UI), in most cases, especially for light-weight add-ins. It is just me, maybe.