Difference between <ClientId> and <AddInId> in Auodesk plugins?

[eric.isaac2KKE9]

Hi All - I'm encountering an issue launching Revit 2023 via Visual Studio when pyRevit is installed. The RevitAddonManifest.cs (in pyRevit) seems to expect the field <AddInId>, which some plugins do not have - they have a <ClientId> instead.

I am on a machine with several versions of Revit installed (2020 - 2023), and it is possible that...

1. The AddIn files I have are out-of-date or invalid

2. Something about the Visual Studio + PyRevit combination is attempting to load inappropriate files (e.g. 2020 plugins when launching 2023)

Didn't find any relevant results w/ a simple internet search, so my question is do <ClientId> and <AddInId> correspond in the .addin file? As in, is AddInId the up-to-date field, and ClientId is one from a previous version of Revit, or do they serve separate purposes?

I think that'll help me narrow down what my problem actually is w/ the VS + pyRevit launch. The first two files reporting an error are the 2020 Autodesk.BatchPrint.addin & Autodesk.WorksharingMonitor.addin, and I currently don't know if this is valid behavior (loading a 2020 plugin into 2023), or if pyRevit is making some sort of mistake in its assumptions.

[jeremy_tammik · Accepted solution]

The Revit add-in manifest files have not changed. They and their tags and attributes are documented here:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2024/ENU/?guid=Revit_API_Revit_API_Developers_Guide_Introduction_...

[eric.isaac2KKE9]

Thank you for confirming @jeremy_tammik - the doc link is also very helpful

[eric.isaac2KKE9]

@jeremy_tammik - any chance you'd know where I can find information on ClientId? It's an old post, but an example on your blog shows an example of a plugin that has ClientId, but not AddInId: The Building Coder: External Command Lister and Adding Ribbon Commands (typepad.com)

I've perused the docs for Revit 2013, but haven't found corresponding manifest documentation. And unfortunatley, search (docs, and web) is proving terribly ineffective for finding this particular piece of information.

[jeremy_tammik]

Aha. Thank you for the pointer. That explains completely. ClientId is an obsolete name for AddInId. It is obviously still supported, silently, und the hood, but no longer documented. If you go back far enough into the old releases API documentation, you ought be able to find out when it changed. The two are interchangeable. Here is an old post that mentions both names; one is the add-in manifest tag (obsolete) the other a property (still in use today):

• https://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2010/04/addin-manifest-and-guidize.html