Beginner API?

[TomWaltz]

Is there a place that people ask beginner-level API questions?

We're looking at getting the kit, and want to see if there is any kind of support group for it.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I Think what ought to be done is releasing the API's for free.
We will see a great boost in archicad not only from commercial but from users.

I am sure that open source tools will be quickly made.

Autodesk is not fool for releasing the APIs. Even microsoft will do that for office. It is a demand from the market.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I have some comments on the API kit here:

http://www.graphisoft.com/community/archicad-talk/viewtopic.php?p=3860#3860

and there was quite a bit of discussion with feelings similar to those of both of you on the old list - if escribe still archives back far enough.


The support issue, Tom, is interesting. The kit is 'free' for development of demo-only add-ons, but the required non-disclosure agreement prevents discussion of the API or the development of add-ons, etc. in public. That makes no sense to me at all.

There is a discussion forum on the GS developer web site for registered developers, thus providing a place for people who have signed the agreement to discuss things ... but I haven't even looked there since last fall - all of us said hello and asked questions that nobody from GS responded to and so left.

I agree that the API should be free like that of every other major manufacturer ... but even if they want to charge for it, GS could allow free discussion of it here where it is convenient for all of us. (I'll get off the soap box now.)

Cheers,
Karl

[stefan]

I'll just add my experience to that.

I've downloaded the SDK and looked through it, but gave up. Being an expensive tool, I stopped using it.

I'm now learning the 3ds max SDK which is free to use and has a more open discussion going on. And do you know which of the two has the most plugins available? Some of them free! Some of them even open source...

I've said it in the past and I'll repeat it here: the SDK/API is a good thing to extend your application, but it shouldn't be restricted to commercial development.

---

On a personal level, I'm at a university and the next project we are trying to set up is to develop a testing/simulation tool for architectural CAD. We will try to develop a series of tests and integrate them into a commercial CAD-application. The concept is to be independent of the hosting CAD-software, so a plugin-system will be set up.

To me it's clear that I would like to do this for ArchiCAD and AutoCAD ADT, but at the moment, I have to leave out ArchiCAD because of all these restrictions.

We won't pay such a high fee for a non-commercial development research project. We still have bad memories about licensing TGS OpenInventor and not being able to extend it's license, since we won't get any return of investment.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

stefan wrote:
I'll just add my experience to that.

I've downloaded the SDK and looked through it, but gave up. Being an expensive tool, I stopped using it.

Stefan,

While I'm certainly not technically able to do much with Graphisoft's SDK, I am curious about your comment about its expense. GS Developer website says this about the API kit:

Graphisoft API authorization fee removed
Posted on: January 27, 2004
We are happy to inform you that our policy with Graphisoft API Developers has been modified. We have removed the fee which was payable for the authorization of the API developments. (As you know, any development based on GS API works only with the ArchiCAD Demo version. An authorization code has to be obtained from Graphisoft in order to enable the API development to run with the commercial ArchiCAD version.) The API versions are available on the developer website for download as before.

We ask developers to sign a Graphisoft API Developer Agreement and to provide information about their company as well as their future development. Receiving these information Graphisoft will issue the authorization code free of charge.

We launch a Developer Support program, which includes e-mail based technical support program and the API Trainings at Graphisoft HQ. Developer Support costs 900 Euro/year for a company.

Am I missing something?

Aaron

[Anonymous]

By the recent date of the notice I suspect that Graphisoft is paying attention to ArchiCAD talk and that this is one result. Very good news all around, but it does seem odd that it was not announced here (with some fanfare even).

I begin to think that the Hungarians are terminally shy and perhaps don't want to be seen as blowing their own horn. But then Attila certainly had no such problem.

In any case, a toast to the good folks at Graphisoft. Egészségedre!

[Karl Ottenstein]

Aaron wrote:
I am curious about your comment about its expense. GS Developer website says this about the API kit:

This is very good news, Aaron. Most peculiar are the facts that:

(a) this was not announced by GS themselves here,

(b) GS did not send an email to all of the registered developers with this info, or otherwise to people who have already signed their agreement

(c) the peculiar desire by GS to still require a non-disclosure agreement so that we are not allowed to discuss the API kit in this forum, which is the proper place

(d) the GS developer web site, the 'source' of information for GS developers, has no mention of this on its home page (accessable only by password to developers) and in fact the most recent information on that page is dated August 28, 2002. They do have the notice as you provided it on their "News" page though...but it is my understanding that it is a violation of our agreement to copy information from that password protected site and publish it? Of course it should not be - that is part of the stupidity of this non-disclosure thing.

Definitely moves in the right direction, which I have to assume is a credit to the new management team in Budapest.

Thanks for passing along this new information!

Karl

[Fabrizio Diodati]

I really agree with Karl: good first step in the rigth direction but, on the other hand, I’m really angry that Graphisoft didn’t share, at least till now, this news with its certified 3rd party developers!
I, as Manager of Cigraph Software Development, never received any communication about it and, let me say, Cigraph Factory is the main producer of plug-ins for ArchiCAD.

… a god step in the right direction but no step toward a good communication channel!

[Anonymous]

If i remember well ( i am sure i do)
back in escribe it has been posted an annoucment that the api bond will break but later the same official from GS said that he was hasty and that the decision to make api free will take place later.

So they decided to make it public at 27/1/04 but just didnt announced it.

Anyway that is great news.

[stefan]

This is good news. I agree that the communication is a bit lacking, but I guess that we are sitting in the fastest and most accurate communication channel on ArchiCAD: this LIST 😉

If this is a result of the comments on this list or the new management, then things are looking good.

I'll have to revisit the API in that case...

(P.S. This is my 100th post! - but I'm still a junior member ...)