Forge Configurator Inventor

Demo application showcasing Configuration with Design Automation for Inventor

Architecture

Prerequisites

Web Application

1. .NET Core 3.1
2. Node.js
   Important note: In Node.js even releases are stable, and odd-numbered versions are unstable. That's said we won't support or guarantee the work of the application using the odd-numbered Node.js versions. Currently the latest version we support is the even version v16.13.2. Unless version v18 will be released we are not supporting versions newer than v16.
3. (recommended) Visual Studio Code with extensions:
   • Debugger for Chrome (for debugging client side code)
   • ESLint
   • Prettier
   • psioniq File Header (to insert copyright header)

App Bundles

1. Autodesk Inventor 2021
2. Visual Studio 2019

Run sample for the first time

1. Clone repository

2. Create a forge app at https://forge.autodesk.com/, and select Design Automation API and Data Management API in the APIs section

3. Enter https://localhost:5001 as the callback URL

4. Note the Client ID and Client Secret generated

5. Specify Forge credentials using one of the following approaches:
   a) Set environment variables FORGE_CLIENT_ID and FORGE_CLIENT_SECRET
   b) Set environment variables Forge__ClientId and Forge__ClientSecret
   c) Make a copy of appsettings.Local.template.json in the WebApplication directory named appsettings.Local.json and replace the <clientId> and <clientSecret> in it
   d) (not on dev machine) Modify appsettings.json (or appsettings.<ENVIRONMENT>.json) with the template mentioned in c)
   e) Set environment variable 'set NODE_ENV=development'

6. Make a copy of InventorBinFolder.props.template in the top AppBundles folder named InventorBinFolder.props and replace the PATH_TO_YOUR_INVENTOR_BIN string in it with your actual Inventor bin folder path, for example: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2021\Bin

7. (Optional) Choose network configuration for your application. By default polling is enabled as it offers an easier way to setup and run the application. This is OK for locally run applications and debugging. However in production using the new callback option is highly recommended to conserve resources. In order to enable the callback option modify the Publisher section of the appsettings.json file. Change "CompletionCheck" value from "Polling" to "Callback" and set "CallbackUrlBase" url to your server URL or ngrok tunnel URL for a locally run application. To run and debug callbacks locally please refer to the ngrok section

8. (Optional) Specify if access should be limited in WebApplication\appsettings.json. Set Enabled to true or false, and populate the Domains and Addresses fields with comma delimited lists such as ["autodesk.com", "company.com"] and ["[email protected]", "[email protected]"]

9. Open the forge-configurator-inventor.sln file with Visual Studio 2019 and build the solution
   This will also generate the zip files of all the app bundles that the web app will need to upload to the Design Automation server
   
   When building the solution, make sure that all those app bundles got generated successfully
   Now we have to initialize things both on the Design Automation server and locally. In the terminal (in Visual Studio or outside) navigate to the WebApplication folder and run dotnet run initialize=true
   Once the output reaches the Now listening on: https://localhost:5001 line just open that URL in your browser
   Next time you'll also be able to start the app from the Visual Studio debugger. In the Debug drop-down menu select forge-configurator-inventor and start debugging This time your browser should open up automatically showing the correct URL

Build

• Building the projects also installs required packages (this can take several minutes).

Web Application and App Bundles

• Open the forge-configurator-inventor.sln file with Visual Studio 2019 and build the solution

Web Application Alone

• From a command prompt, go to the WebApplication directory, and run dotnet build.

(Optional) Update the npm packages

• If you are not running the Application for the first time, but rather getting an update, you may need to install npm packages that were added since your last successfull run:

1. Using command line go to WebApplication/ClientApp and run npm install. See Adding npm package for more information.

Run The Web Application Without Debugging

Clear and load initial data during app launch time

• Create initial data: from the WebApplication directory, run dotnet run initialize=true
• Clear data: from the WebApplication directory, run dotnet run clear=true
• Clear and then load initial data: from the WebApplication directory, run dotnet run initialize=true clear=true
• When the app finishes the initialization process it remains running and expects client calls. You can leave it running and follow by opening the site or stop it and move to the the Debugging section

Run after initial data is created

• From a command prompt, go to the WebApplication directory, and run dotnet run

Open site

• Navigate to https://localhost:5001
  • You may need to refresh the browser after it launches if you see the error This site can't be reached
  • If you see the error Your Connection is not private, click Advanced and then Proceed to localhost (unsafe). This is due a development certificate being used.

Debug The Web Application With VS Code

1. Make sure that application is fully initialized, before you start debugging session. Please see the Clear and load initial data
2. Open the repository root folder in VS Code
3. In the Run tab, select the Server/Client configuration and click the "Start Debugging" (arrow) button
   • Some browser errors are normal, see open site
   • Disregard C# errors related to AppBundles in VS Code

Run/Debug Tests

Backend

• Note that running the tests clears initialization data, so you will either need to change forge credentials before running them, or run the initializer again afterward. See Clear and load initial data...

1. From Visual Studio 2019
   • Open Test Explorer and select tests to run or debug
2. From Visual Studio Code
   • Open a test file in the WebApplication.Tests directory and click on either Run Test or Debug Test above one of the methods decorated with the [Fact] attribute. Or, above the class declaration click on either Run All Tests or Debug All Tests
3. From the command line, in either the root or WebApplication.Tests directory run dotnet test

Frontend

1. In Visual Studio Code, on the Run tab, select the Debug Jest All configuration and click the "Start Debugging" (arrow) button
   • Note that once you run the tests they will only run again if they changed since the last time
2. Alternatively, using the command line go to WebApplication/ClientApp and execute npm test

UI Tests

• For UI tests we are using CodeCeptJs framework. All tests are stored in ClientApp/src/ui-tests/ and we filter all files end with *_test.js.
• Set environment variables SDRA_USERNAME and SDRA_PASSWORD for Sign-in workflow. We are using Autodesk Account credentials for Sign-in.
• Set "embedded" : true In appsettings.Local.json file mentioned in Run sample for the first time 5c)
  • Also you can create a .env file in the WebApplication/ClientApp directory to define the environment variables - for more details follow this link: https://www.npmjs.com/package/dotenv
• Note that the server needs to be running for these tests

1. From the WebApplication/ClientApp directory:
   • For all UI tests Run this command: npx codeceptjs run or npm run uitest.
   • For particular file you can use this command: npx codeceptjs run src/ui-tests/<test file name>

Backend

We are using the forge service on the backend https://forge.autodesk.com/

.NET Core

We are using the latest version of .NET Core (3.1 at the time of writing) https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/3.1

The project was initally created using the command dotnet new react

Forge Design Automation

https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/design-automation/v3/developers_guide/overview/

C# SDK https://github.com/Autodesk-Forge/forge-api-dotnet-design.automation

We are using the Inventor and Revit engines.

OSS

Used for storing your designs. For communication with Forge Design Automation

https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/data/v2/developers_guide/overview/

C# SDK https://github.com/Autodesk-Forge/forge-api-dotnet-client

Client app

React

https://reactjs.org/

Redux

https://redux.js.org/

We are using redux-thunk for complex and asynchronous operations https://github.com/reduxjs/redux-thunk

Redux DevTool

In index.js replace

const store = createStoreWithMiddleware(mainReducer);

with

const store = createStoreWithMiddleware(mainReducer, window.__REDUX_DEVTOOLS_EXTENSION__ && window.__REDUX_DEVTOOLS_EXTENSION__());

Autodesk HIG React

https://github.com/Autodesk/hig

Table is not part of todays React HIG implementation so we will use https://github.com/Autodesk/react-base-table

How to

Add npm package to project

We are using npm.

1. Using command line go to WebApplication/ClientApp and run npm install <package>
   • Note that packages are normally installed as part of the build, but only if the npm_modules directory is not found. This means that when new packages are added, WebApplication/ClientApp/npm install needs to be run again manually by other users (who did not add the new package).

Manually run linter

• For JavaScript code: npm run lint
• For CSS: npm run lint-css

Deploy

• For an advanced example of CI/CD on AWS, see AWS-CICD
• For a simple method of deploying to Azure, see Publish a Web app to Azure App Service using Visual Studio
  • First change WebApplication.Program.cs by removing the UseKestrel() statement
  • You will need to change the callback in your forge app to match the URL you deploy to.
• Example of the real-life deploy of an FDA as an App Service

Project file zip encoding

• Uploading your project file can cause the error "Project name or assembly contains unsupported characters". This problem typically happens when you use non Latin characters in your project file names and the zip file does not use UTF-8 encoding for the project file names.

• This issue can be fixed by forcing your zip program of choice to zip the file with the UTF-8 encoding

• For 7-zip, you can follow these simple steps:

  • After selecting your files for zipping, right-click them and select 7-zip from the context menu
  • Select option "Add to archive..."
  • On the very bottom you can see a text field labelled "Parameters:"
  • Write "cu" without the quotes into that field
  • Press ok
  • Name your resulting zip file

• For more information on this issue please refer to the FDA troubleshooting page

Use ngrok for localhost callbacks

• If you choose webhook callback network configuration for the application, you will need a way for the callbacks to get from the FDA servers to your local machine.
• One of the tools that can assist you with this task is ngrok https://ngrok.com/
• These steps should help you to set up an ngrok tunnel to your localhost:
  • Create a free ngrok account
  • Download the ngrok executable from https://dashboard.ngrok.com/get-started/setup
  • Unzip the executable
  • (Optional) put the path to the ngrok executable in your system path to make it accessible from everywhere
  • Notice section 2. of the download page. This contains your credentials and full authenticate command for you to copy paste
  • Use the full authentication command from previous step - this only needs to be done once
  • Run ngroc with the format of ngrok http port and set the port number the web application uses on your local machine
  • With default settings the command would look like this: ngrok http 5001
  • You are now ready to use and debug callbacks locally
  • If you experience issues running ngrok tunnel with the web application using https settings, the simple workaround is to switch the app to http mode (only for local use).
  • In order to set the callback URL for local development it is recomended to create an appsettings.Local.json file in the WebApplication directory (if you don't have it already) and then put following settings into it:

    {
      "Publisher": {
          "CompletionCheck": "Callback",
          "CallbackUrlBase": "<YOUR NGROK URL>"
      }
    }

Embedded mode

You can read about embedded mode here