Enable Console Logging in Navisworks

[ricaun]

Hello everybody,

I started playing work Navisworks API and find out something really useful so let's share.

This is how you can enable Console in you Navisworks to know what is happening when you plugin does not load of something else.

To enable you need to open the Navisworks OptionsEditor in advanced mode. You can find the file inside you Navisworks folder and need to add the command line '-a'. (Probably a means advanced.)

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Navisworks Manage 2025\OptionsEditor.exe" -a

You can find more info in the article to enable Log File: 

• https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Creating-a-Naviswo...

Inside General - Logging enable the 'Enable Console'.

With that enable the next time you open your Navisworks a console shows with all logs related to the section.

By the way if your plugin run `Console.WriteLine` that message gonna show in this Console.

Enjoy!

[alexisDVJML]

Excellent. A lot of extra options with this mode, not sure which one is also useful. Will report if I find some interesting ones.

[alexisDVJML]

I have a related question, maybe someone (@naveen.kumar.t ? ;->) can answer it.

Our plugins output a significant amount of reporting.
The user friendly ones get displayed in a dedicated pane, and can be acted on, great.

In debug mode, all go to the VisualStudio output pane, not bad.

Ideally, in Release mode, I would like to send those to the Navisworks console IF Logging is enabled.
This would help analyze issues faced by our Plugins users.

Thanks for any tips.