Documentation / Autodesk App Store Navisworks

Autodesk App Store Navisworks

Information for professional developers

This guide is for developers and content providers new to publishing plug-ins and other content on the Autodesk App Store—either free, trial, or paid versions. It outlines best practice guidelines and a few requirements for publishers to follow when creating products for the Autodesk App Store. These guidelines are designed to ensure that users on the Autodesk App Store have a consistent experience when downloading multiple products from the Store. Autodesk Navisworks® Manage and Autodesk® Navisworks® Simulate support apps delivered by the Autodesk App Store. Apps can be used to add both.NET API plugins and NWcreate plugins.

Production apps will be delivered as an MSI installer that is produced after you submit your app to the Autodesk App Store. However, it is possible to test your app by simulating what the installer would do and simply copying your deliverables into the correct place on disk. No registration is required. Here we describe how to produce an app that includes a .NET API plugin.

Requirements

Prerequisites

  • The non-registration mechanism can work from Navisworks® 2015, while our .NET API of one release is only compatible within one major version. So if your application will support multi-releases, you will need to compile the binaries with each version of .NET API and package them together. The instruction below will indicate how to specify the corresponding binary.

  • You will need Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 or later and .NET Framework = 4.7 for Navisworks® 2018 later version and 4.8 for Navisworks® 2024 and later versions.

User privileges

The default user privilege for the Store apps is Windows 7/10/11 Admin User. The installer should have elevated user privileges.

Folders and files

Locations

Two root folders are supported for loading Autodesk apps. Note that it is not just Navisworks that uses these folders. All Autodesk products share them.

The per-user root folder is:

  • %APPDATA%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins

While the per-machine root folder is:

  • %PROGRAMDATA%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins

Apps installed in the per-user folder will only be available for that user, whereas apps installed in the per-machine folder will be available for all users.

Your bundle

Inside one of the above root folders, you need to create a uniquely named folder whose name ends in “.bundle”. Directly inside this folder should be a configuration file named “PackageContents.xml”. There should also be a “Contents” subfolder where you put your deliverables.

The minimum ‘development’ installation would have 2 files and be along the lines of:

  • %APPDATA%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\ADSK.MyApp.bundle\ PackageContents.xml
  • % APPDATA %\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\ ADSK.MyApp.bundle \ Contents\ v14\ ADSK. MyPlugin.dll

Notes:

  • This assumes we target at a bundle with binary of Navisworks® 2024 only, where ‘v21’ is just a name of the sub folder to deploy the binary that is compiled with .NET API of 2017. If a binary of 2025, it can be ‘v22’.
  • Real installations will probably require more than 2 files, as they will contain documentation, icons, etc.
  • Real installations will require “ADSK” to be replaced by your unique ADN Developer ID. We recommend to name this ID by reversed version of your domain name, e.g. com.autodesk or uk.co.autodesk.
  • Your folder name must be unique across all Autodesk bundles. Prefixing with your own unique Developer ID is a good starting point.
  • The name of each DLL you install must be unique within a running session of Navisworks. It must not clash with DLLs that Navisworks installs, nor with those provided by any other apps. Prefixing with your unique Developer ID is a good starting point.

Configuration

NWcreate File loader support

Components can also specify that the DLL is an NWcreate style ‘File loader’. To do this use AppType="NativeLoader".

For reference of those developers who want to pop out F1 help with the plugin: currently, the way is to hook up F1 by Windows API to display your own help page.

Additional information

The ADN team is here to help you be a successful publisher on the Autodesk App Store. If you have any further questions after reviewing these guidelines and the other documentation on the Autodesk App Store Publisher Center, email us at appsubmissions@autodesk.com for support.