topic Re: Access to Vault through Inventor in Vault Customization Forum

Access to Vault through Inventor

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 09:24:08 GMT

Hello,

I'm new to the world of Vault API. I'm pretty useful with Inventor API and am trying to write a program that will allow me to read an iProperty value of an Inventor file in Vault.

I can't get past the first hurdle of establishing the connection. The code below produces the following errors:

Error on Line 6 : Type 'VDF.Vault.Currency.Connections.Connection' is not defined.
Error on Line 9 : 'Connectivity' is not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protection level.

Imports Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework.Vault
Imports Autodesk.Connectivity.WebServices
Imports VDF = Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework
Imports ACW = Autodesk.Connectivity.WebServices

Dim myConnection As VDF.Vault.Currency.Connections.Connection = Nothing
' Get the Vault connection from 
' the Inventor Vault log in
myConnection = Connectivity.Application.VaultBase.ConnectionManager.Instance.Connection()

Any tips on what I'm missing? I'm writing in the iLogic environment of Inventor.

Re: Access to Vault through Inventor

JamieVJohnson2 — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 21:12:29 GMT

This is how I connect to vault for use by Inventor API (VB.net)

      Private Property vConnection As Vault.Currency.Connections.Connection


 Public Sub LoginToVault()
        Dim lgResults As Vault.Results.LogInResult =
               VDF.Vault.Library.ConnectionManager.LogIn(VaultServer, VaultVault, VaultUsername, VaultPassword, VDF.Vault.Currency.Connections.AuthenticationFlags.ReadOnly, Nothing)
        If lgResults.Success = True Then
            vConnection = lgResults.Connection
            'Else
            '    vConnection = Vault.Forms.Library.Login(Nothing)
        End If
        RaiseEvent VaultStatusChanged()
    End Sub

Also, I've found that I had to copy the cmloader.dll file from vault explorer folder into my project code (must be correct release version). I have a special window that responds to the connect event and creates a 'light on' during active connections. That is not necessary for standard use. I also once used a fallback method of opening the Vault Login screen (remmed out).

Re: Access to Vault through Inventor

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:35:52 GMT

Hi @JamieVJohnson2

Thanks for responding. I am trying run my code from within the iLogic environment, which I'm not sure is even possible? as such I do not have a project code folder. Are you are using a 3rd party?

I have this error with the code you posted:

Error on Line 4 : Type 'Vault.Results.LogInResult' is not defined.

Really appreciate any help you can give, I've found very little about this subject online.

Re: Access to Vault through Inventor

JamieVJohnson2 — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 14:53:22 GMT

Inventor's object reference works the same in VB.net (Visual Studio), VBA (Inventor Tools\Macros), and iLogic (Rules), so there is not much of a learning curve there, but the editors use slightly different syntax. iLogic Editor is a unique beast. It handles many languages. You can write iLogic style macro code, VBA, and VB.Net and others within in. However, there is no 'intellisense' for it, and for that reason, I avoid using it for 'robust' programming. I use Microsoft Visual Studio and write mainly with VB.Net. Your current situation, you are accessing Vault API within the Inventor environment. In order to do that, you must import the references that access the Vault Web Service (manually via code, something I can't give you a quick answer for, sorry, look up how its done in VBA), or get access to the Vault Add-In within Inventor (probably more difficult as it wasn't designed for that). This can get cumbersome in that environment for a lot of references, so if you are planning on creating a program that can integrate multiple platforms, I suggest you migrate to the Visual Studio environment. The entire list of references I'm using to access Vault are: Autodesk.Connectivity.WebServices, Autodesk.Connectivity.WebServices.Interop, Autodesk.Connectivity.WebServices.WCF, Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework, and Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework.Vault

Each of these are found with a .dll extension within Autodesk Vault (version) SDK\bin\x64\ folder. I suppose you could use the vb command ImportDll to load them into the iLogic editor, but again, I haven't done that in a long time. There is also Declare Function functionname Lib "*.dll" as value to pull out specific access points from a dll, and that can get very messy.

Good luck,

Re: Access to Vault through Inventor

JamieVJohnson2 — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 15:02:29 GMT

One more thing, for any class defined object that you don't have a definition for (aka you didn't import any dlls) you can declare a variable as 'object' and it will use that as a generic place holder. This may help with the "LogInResults" object definition. Change that to Dim lgResults as Object = ... and see if it continues, I doubt it because you haven't defined what VDF, Vault, Library, ConnectionManager are. And VDF I a substituted for the value below.

Imports VDF = Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework