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Custom extensions

Anonymous User

Original User: 164549

None of my custom developed extensions are showing up under Customize->Extensions, yet all the ESRI extensions are there. Is there some new development process or different setting needed to make them show up?

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Accepted answers

RalfGottschalk

Mark,

There is no other location, and you do require admin privileges to register you custom components. Our non-admin component story is with Add-ins. They don�??t have all the extensibility points, but they are nice and easy to deploy on a per user basis.

http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/arcobjects_net/conceptualhelp/index.html#/Building_add_ins_for_ArcGIS_Desktop/0001000000w2000000/

rlwatson,

We don�??t recommend you zip XMLs and then rename them, we�??d prefer you use ESRIRegasm instead, though it probably will work most of the time. And since we don�??t really support VB6 dlls I guess you can do whatever you want. But just so you are aware, the KB doc here describes how you can create *.ecfg files by using the reg files create the category information, or create an XML file and then plug that into ESRIRegasm.

http://resources.arcgis.com/content/kbase?fa=articleShow&d=37639

All comments

YuanLiu

The updated link to KB Article 37639 is 37639 - Register Legacy Components with ArcGIS 10

RichardWatson

I sent you an email Vince.

When I first encountered this issue, ESRI provided no documented way to register VB6 components. The position of ESRI was, and still is, just not to use VB6. What I had to do was to reverse engineer the logic and build the ecfg files by hand.

ESRI subsequently provided the following:

http://resources.arcgis.com/content/kbase?fa=articleShow&d=37639

Anonymous User

Original User: guilletvm

It appears to me that when you run the ESRIRegAsm tool that it produces a file in the following directory:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcGIS\Desktop9.4\Configuration\CATID

The name of the file is something like {GUID}_name.ecfg. The file itself is really a zip file which contains a file named config.xml. It appears that ArcMap is using this file to determine component categories versus that which is in the registry.

I did the following:

1) Used the VB6 sample which has a tool bar, extension, and zoom in and out commands and built the DLL and reg file needed on a 9.3.1 system
2) Tested the sample on 9.3.1; no problems
3) Tested the sample on 9.4 using ESRIRegAsm; it does not work
4) Went to the CATID directory, extracted the config.xml, manually repaired the XML, and put it back in the zip
5) Tested the sample, no problems

ESRI, why don't you provide a trivial tool which does this?

When you say you "manually repaired the XML" what did you have to do?

RalfGottschalk

Anonymous User

Original User: rlwatson

What I did was to reverse engineer what ESRI did. I did this by creating some .NET components, running ESRIRegAsm on them, and then viewing the generated XML. I then made up similar XML files, zipped them, and finally renamed the zip to ecfg for my VB6 projects. It works fine. If you really need an example of a working VB6 component ecfg then email me (rwatsonattelcordiadotcom).

The GUID that is used is different than what ESRI previously used. I believe that it is now the GUID of the type library. My experience that this only matters because it determines the load order of the components, i.e. low GUID to high GUID.

markcheyne

This is in answer to Thomas York's question above, post #35.

This is how to use VB6 to bind to an ArcGIS version.

Thomas correctly identified the necessary DLL to reference (c:\program files\common files\arcgis\bin\arcgisversion.dll), but when you use the VB6 Object Browser to examine the classes in that library, you'll see that the appropriate class name is different from that seen in the .NET examples on this subject.

You need to instantiate a VersionManager object as type IArcGISVersion, and call its LoadVersion() method. You might want to see http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/arcobjects_net/conceptualhelp/index.html#//000100000nmm000000 for a C++ example.

Something along these lines:

Private Sub btnTest_Click()
  On Error GoTo EH
  
  Dim vok As Boolean
  Dim lok As Boolean
  
  'bind to an ArcGIS 10 version:
  Dim version As String
  version = "10.0"
  Dim vmgr As ArcGISVersionLib.IArcGISVersion
  Set vmgr = New ArcGISVersionLib.VersionManager
  vok = vmgr.LoadVersion(esriArcGISDesktop, "10.0")
  If Not vok Then
    Err.Raise 1, , "Unable to bind to ArcGIS version " & version
  End If
  
  'now get a license:
  Dim ao As esriSystem.IAoInitialize
  Set ao = New esriSystem.AoInitialize
  lok = True
  If (ao.IsProductCodeAvailable(esriLicenseProductCodeArcInfo) = esriLicenseAvailable) Then
    ao.Initialize esriLicenseProductCodeArcInfo
  Else
    lok = False
    Err.Raise 2, , "Unable to get an ArcGIS Desktop license."
  End If
  
  'report results:
  MsgBox "Bound to ArcGIS 10: " & vok & vbCrLf & "Got a license: " & lok

ExitSub:
  Exit Sub
  
EH:
  MsgBox Err.Description
  Resume ExitSub
End Sub

Anonymous User

Original User: cheynm

These techniques are working for me with the release version, thanks Ralf.

Thinking ahead to new ArcGIS 10 extensions we will make, which thankfully won't require COM registration, always a headache as it requires elevated privs, there is still a snarl under the new scheme -

Is there any other location besides C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcGIS\Desktop10.0\Configuration\CATID where *.ecfg files can be placed?

That location requires elevated privs.

RalfGottschalk

Hey Brian,

There is nothing machine specific in the ecfg, so you could create the ecfg file on your development machine and as long as it is deployed into the proper CATID folder on the target machine it will work. You still have to register the dll on that machine, but you could use a reg file for this. That way you can avoid calling ESRIRegAsm, Regasm, or regsvr32 altogether in your setup.

Anonymous User

Original User: bFlood

hi ralfg

is there anything machine specific in the ecfg file or could you generate it once for your extension and then just place that file your installer (and install it in the proper CATID folder). Is this better or worse then just running ESRIRegAsm on every machine during the install process?

thanks
brian

RalfGottschalk

Hi Able,

I just want to be clear, so sorry for the longwinded answer.

The major change that affects people who are building customizations for Desktop at 10 is that these customizations are no longer loaded through component categories in the registry, but instead through product specific configuration files (ecfg). The point of the article is to say that if you have an existing dll that always �??just worked�?� and you want to try it in 10 �??as is�?� then here is how you can create an ecfg file for that dll. Try it, if it works, great!

There is a good chance that if you just create the proper ecfg file, it might just work. (No guarantees) If it does work we still recommend that you recompile, but at least for now things are working, and you can spend more time on your migration process. If you built your dll in VB6, please migrate to a supported development language. If you built it in any other language recompile and certify. If it doesn�??t work or have problems, then you must recompile.

The deployment mechanism is the same for dlls that are compiled at the current release or older ones. The only additional step you have to do in 10 is that your setup program needs to put the ecfg file in the right spot on the target machine.

So in your situation, you could try to use the VB6 dll without recompiling against 10. Or you could compile your VB6 dll against 10. (Either way this would not be supported, because at 10 VB6 is not longer supported). Then you would run ESRIRegAsm against your reg file to create an ecfg file.

To deploy you can deploy like you always have done. Since it is a VB6 dll and VB6 dlls do not support category registration, you might have used a reg file to register the dll and category information. You could use regsvr32 to register the dll, or you could use this same reg file to register the dll, but you don�??t need the category information in the reg file, that is all in the ecfg file, which you copy over to the CATID folder.

Hope this helps.

Anonymous User

Original User: warpengine

So let me get this straight after reading the tech article.

I have a VB6 DLL that I compile against the 10.0 framework. Then I take the ESRIRegAsm tool against my reg file to create a ecfg file.

To deploy I copy the DLL to a location of my choosing, then I copy the ecfg file to %CommonProgramFiles%\ArcGIS\Desktop10.0\Configuration\CATID and finally I still use regsvr32 to register the DLL.

Did I get that all correct?

AGP

sirishapolsapalli

Hi Can you please tell me what is that you manually repaired in the XML. I am having the same problem. And when I look into the CATID directory I noticed the CLSID values dont match the values from the component catergories. I modified the values in the config.xml to match the Component Categories and tried to execute ESRIRegAsm using the syntax
ESRIRegAsm /p:Desktop "MyDLL.dll" /f:"Config.dll" but didnt work.
Thanks,
Sirisha.

The following solution works for me now with ArcGIS 10 and Windows 7:
ESRIRegAsm /p:Desktop "MyDLL.dll" /f:"Config.dll"
The same however didnt work with ArcGIS 10 pre-release.
And the command prompt when running ESRIRegAsm should be run as an administrator in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Thank you,
Sirisha.
The Omega Group
San Diego

sirishapolsapalli

It appears to me that when you run the ESRIRegAsm tool that it produces a file in the following directory:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcGIS\Desktop9.4\Configuration\CATID

The name of the file is something like {GUID}_name.ecfg. The file itself is really a zip file which contains a file named config.xml. It appears that ArcMap is using this file to determine component categories versus that which is in the registry.

I did the following:

1) Used the VB6 sample which has a tool bar, extension, and zoom in and out commands and built the DLL and reg file needed on a 9.3.1 system
2) Tested the sample on 9.3.1; no problems
3) Tested the sample on 9.4 using ESRIRegAsm; it does not work
4) Went to the CATID directory, extracted the config.xml, manually repaired the XML, and put it back in the zip
5) Tested the sample, no problems

ESRI, why don't you provide a trivial tool which does this?

Hi Can you please tell me what is that you manually repaired in the XML. I am having the same problem. And when I look into the CATID directory I noticed the CLSID values dont match the values from the component catergories. I modified the values in the config.xml to match the Component Categories and tried to execute ESRIRegAsm using the syntax
ESRIRegAsm /p:Desktop "MyDLL.dll" /f:"Config.dll" but didnt work.
Thanks,
Sirisha.

Anonymous User

Original User: jnaveen

Sorry. Again invalid question and hence removed my own question.

RalfGottschalk

Mark,

The instructions provided in the KB document for using a reg file will not work with Pre-Release. You will have to manually create the XML file like in the 3rd step. The reg file functionality was included at 10.0 final.

Anonymous User

Original User: cheynm@yahoo.com

Anybody got any guidance if none of these tricks seem to work with my VB6 extension and toolbar?

At 9.3.1 and prior, we install our extension using an MSI, which registers all the classes in the DLL, and which invokes a *.reg file to do component category registration of the extension, toolbar, and commands.

On ArcGIS 10 prerelease/XPSP3, I've run the installer and verified that all the classes are registered. Then I use ESRIRegAsm.exe with the /f switch to do component category registration based on the *.reg file. I check the zipped xml config file that get created, and it doesn't seem to have correct information - the component category GUID is not familiar, some classes are not registered, some are, and some extraneous unknown classes are registered. So I hand edit the XML using the *.reg file as a guide.

and nowhere along the way does my extension show up in ArcMap's list of extensions, nor my toolbar in the list of toolbars.

Anybody else having this sort of trouble?

thanks, Mark

BrianFlood

this appears to work as advertised, great work.

many thanks!
brian

Anonymous User

Original User: ralfg

The following KB document has been published with instructions showing how to register legacy components with ArcGIS 10.0.

http://resources.arcgis.com/content/kbase?fa=articleShow&d=37639

I hope you find this useful and it helps in your migration processes.

BrianFlood

hello gottralf/esri

Has there been any movement on releasing the documentation for installing legacy components/extensions? I'm sure many here fully intend to port existing code over to the new framework eventually however, a stopgap measure (unsupported as it may be) for early 10.0 users would be very helpful

it has been 4 months since you posted about this documentation, meanwhile the release of 10.0 is imminent. I, along with others, have backup plans for installing legacy components but I fear multiple vendors/developers mucking around to force installation, without some clear direction from ESRI, is going to be problematic on many machines.

I appreciate your efforts on the matter!
cheers
brian

Anonymous User

Original User: 13446

We will provide documentation that will describe how customers can register their legacy components with ArcGIS 10. Like you said, ESRI will not provide support for this workflow, so if it doesn�??t work you will not be able to call Technical Support. There will be no guarantees that this registration process will work, and no guarantees that the component will work in the new version.

Ralf, we too are interested in this documentation. Thank you in advance for this very useful workflow.

Now before I ask this next question I want to make it clear:
1. We understand ESRI no longer supports VB6
2. We are in the process of migrating most of our apps to .NET
3. We are only looking at temporary measures to prolong the life of large legacy applications which are simply too close to the end of their life cycles to justify the expense of full migration

Given the removal of the VB6 SDK at 10, and beyond the challenges posed by the move to ESRIRegASM, I'm wondering how others are dealing in Beta 10 with the brand new requirement for product binding in code prior to accessing IAoInitialize for checking out a license:

http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/arcobjects_net/conceptualhelp/index.html#//0001000002ns000000#Runtime

The .Net SDK comes with a new assembly ESRI.ArcGIS.Version.dll that contains the necessary class, which if you're trying to migrate a VB6 DLL does you no good. I've interrogated most of the Beta 10 olbs in Program Files\ArcGIS\com (including esriSystem.olb). No sign of the RuntimeManager class, nor the "Bind" method that clears the way for accessing the IAoInitialize object without invoking the "ArcGIS version not specified" error.

Is the solution found in this new 10 library C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcGIS\bin\ArcGISVersion.dll? If so, can anyone who has successfully implemented this in VB6 share a code snippet?

And to ESRI: if this requirement to Bind (and not the ESRIRegASM, which seems to have workarounds) is the real showstopper, if you know for a fact there will be no way to fulfill the new Binding requirement using VB6-eligible architecture, it would be great if you could just come out and say that, so I can relay this ultimatum up the food chain here at work.

Thanks in advance.

jjenness

I don�??t have specifics on when the instructions will be released or what form it will be in, but it will probably be a blog or a KB doc.

Hello Ralf,
I've been looking for this blog or KB but I haven't seen it yet. Do you have it posted anywhere?
Thanks!
Jeff Jenness

Anonymous User

Original User: jnaveen

I have my Extensions registered in the ESRI Mx Extensions category but that is not instantiated by Arcmap 10.0 and displayed in ArcGIS Extensions list? The same stuff was showing up correctly in 9.3.1 though.

The class itself not even getting instantiated. These are c++ classes.

Any ideas...

MarcN

The fact is that the esriregasm tool in ArcGIS10 does not write the COM category registration information to the registry. Only to their own config format. So The standard COM ways to access those COM catgeories do no longer work. I would accept this if they only handle their own COM categories this way. But I can not accept that my own categories are also handled this way.

Anonymous User

Original User: kirkktx

we use our own COM categories in our extension

AFAIK Microsoft has no plans to deprecate COM categories, so if you want to continue to use them, I don't see how ESRI could prevent that.

Are you using ESRI's ICategoryFactory for discovery/instantiation ?

I've seen nothing from ESRI indicating they plan to deprecate this, but if you have concerns you might consider moving to a non-ESRI alternative to ICategoryFactory. Maybe something like this.

Or are you saying you have an Extension registered in the ESRI Mx Extensions category that is not be instantiated by Arcmap 10.0?

MarcN

Of course this would be a good solution, BUT we are mainly using Visual C++ for COM programming and COM categories are a basic COM mechanism. So I can not accept, that ESRI now simply do no longer support custom COM categories which are a part of COM and no ESRI specific thing.

Anonymous User

Original User: kirkktx

Instead of using a COM Category (i.e. the registry) to discover assemblies at run time, I would consider scanning a folder, perhaps relative to Assembly.Location, then use Assembly.LoadFrom to load dlls that are found. Using reflection, you could scan the types in the assembly and call IExtensionManagerAdmin.AddExtension to load each class that implements IExtension, or perhaps only those marked with some attribute.

MarcN

I am also interested in this topic. Currently we have a problem because we use our own COM categories in our extension. So this does no longer work as before because ESRIRegAsm does not write the information to the registry and so the default COM mechanisms to retrieve the classes registered for a COM category do not work. Currently we use a workaround and do a double registration first using regsvr32 and then esriregasm.

Anonymous User

Original User: ajoos

Thank you for the post, you bring up some good points. Unfortunately I don't have the answers to your questions at this time, but this information needs to be in the documentation for 9.4 final.

I logged an enhancement request for you (NIM052616) to provide documentation on how to create and deploy components using ecfg files.

Hi Ralf

Any news on that enhancement request yet? I've noticed that the XML schema slightly changed from ArcGIS 9.4 Beta to ArcGIS 10 Pre-Final, and would like to update my XML-generator accordingly. A final and definitive XSD schema would be great.

Thanks & best regards,
Andry

jjenness

I am also anxious to see this kb or blog article. Is it out yet? When should we expect it?
Jeff Jenness

Anonymous User

Original User: chorton

So has the kb or blog article been posted about registering legacy components? If not when can we expect it?

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