visual basic .net and MicroStation Connect

Mike Watson said:

What references do I need to get this application working with MicroStation Connect

Get hold of the MicroStation CONNECT SDK.  It provides libraries for .NET and many examples.  Those examples mostly have Viz Studio projects with all the references you need.

Mike Watson said:

I'm currently referencing Bentley MicroStation 1.x Object Library 10.1.  Application works fine with SS2 and SS3

The APIs in CONNECT are very different to V8i.  In particular, .NET has first-class support these days in CONNECT.

Mike Watson said:

What references do I need to get this application working with MicroStation Connect

Get hold of the MicroStation CONNECT SDK.  It provides libraries for .NET and many examples.  Those examples mostly have Viz Studio projects with all the references you need.

Mike Watson said:

I'm currently referencing Bentley MicroStation 1.x Object Library 10.1.  Application works fine with SS2 and SS3

The APIs in CONNECT are very different to V8i.  In particular, .NET has first-class support these days in CONNECT.

Thanks, Jon

Jon Summers said:

Get hold of the MicroStation CONNECT SDK.  It provides libraries for .NET and many examples.

I wish I could do that. Requires a BDN membership.

Rod Wing said:

I wish I could do that. Requires a BDN membership.

Because only few people are willing to discuss this issue publicly (and all other complain privately or not at all), nothing will change in my opinion, because from Bentley perspective, everybody are happy (expect few notorious complainants, like me).

BTW For SELECT / OpenAccess / or how it's called now program, for internal company use BDN membership is free. But it still requires to sign some paper(s), which is often a magnitude bigger problem than to find free budget.

Funny thing is that in the meantime, when Bentley have tried to make developers' life as complicated as possible (and motivate them to use competitive platforms), other people simply put documentation to web ;-)  (I guess it comes from some older version).

Regards,

  Jan

Rod Wing said:

I wish I could do that. Requires a BDN membership

Can't EnvisionCAD apply for BDN membership?  Is that a cost issue (I almost abandoned Bentley two decades ago when they proposed a very high entry fee $5,000 for ISDs).

Jan Šlegr said:

... from Bentley perspective, everybody are happy except few notorious complainants

I'm happy to complain notoriously along with Jan!

It isn't the cost of the BDN membership that's the issue as much as the terms of the agreement and the information that needs to be provided. Our company feels the financial information required to be provided to Bentley is too intrusive and is not willing to divulge that information.

As for the free BDN membership, that is only for internal application development. We are primarily consultants and do very little internal development so that is a no-go for us as well.

Rod Wing said:

It isn't the cost of the BDN membership that's the issue as much as the terms of the agreement and the information that needs to be provided. Our company feels the financial information required to be provided to Bentley is too intrusive

That's a pertinent comment.  I was unaware of Bentley's interest in the commercial aspects of a BDN member.

Hey Jon,

What exactly is supposed to show up when you load the SDK?  Seems as I remember getting a menu option that basically allows you to access documentation and examples locally.  After our IT folks "loaded" the SDK, I only see a menu option to batch file that opens a command window and runs what looks like some setup stuff.

Thanks,

Mike

Mike Watson said:

What exactly is supposed to show up when you load the SDK? 

When you install (not load) the SDK, you will find new folders under the SDK folder.  Here's what I see — your mileage may be different...

Thanks, Jon.

I found the files.  I just found it odd that you had to go looking for files.  I'd think there would be menu option(s) placed near the Microstation Connect menu option.  Not seeing any additional menu options makes me wonder what else didn't get installed.

Thanks again,

Mike

The free membership isn't even all that helpful to casual coders like myself.

When I try to go to Administration and ask them to sign off on the free SDK access, the first thing they ALWAYS ask me is "why do you need that?" And I have no answer, because I don't know what's in it and I don't know what I might be able to learn from it. I WANT to have access to the resources and I WANT to learn what I might be able to develop with it - but until that happens, I have no justification I can bring forth for my company to sign this extra paperwork.