Enable VDF Functionality

When using the VDF, there are some settings that you need to provide to enable full functionality. The VDF will still operate normally, but features will be missing if you do not provide all the settings. What follows is a summary of which assemblies and services contain the settings you need to supply. These settings affect the VDF globally and are not for any specific workflow.

Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework.Forms.Library

ApplicationConfiguration Service: This service contains a number of configuration options that help integrate the VDF into your application.

  • ApplicationIcon - This allows you to set the icon that is used by all the dialogs in the VDF. If this is not set, no icon will be displayed.
  • MainFont - The VDF normally uses the system default font. If you provide a font here, that font will be used instead.
  • CustomHelpProvider - To activate help in the VDF, you should provide an implementation of the ICustomHelpProvider interface here. Without this provider, help buttons will be hidden and help will not work in the VDF.

Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework.Vault.Library

LocalFileLocation Service: This service computes the paths where configuration files are stored by the VDF.

  • VaultCommonPath - This property returns the location for Vault data that is shared between multiple applications that use the Vault SDK. For example, the VDF Login workflow stores the history of servers and vaults in this location.

ConectionManager Service: This service helps handle all connections to a vault server. It provides utilities for checking what products the server supports and what products your application requires.

  • SetProductRequirements - This sets which Autodesk Vault products your application requires, such as Vault Workgroup or Vault Professional. For each product, you can set required, optional, or restricted. These requirements are checked when logging into a server. If they are not met, an error is shown and the login fails.

Autodesk.DataManagement.Client.Framework.Vault.Forms.Library

SetCulture(System.Globalization.CultureInfo info): This will set the culture that this assembly and all its dependencies will use when returing resources. Threads are created using the culture of the operating system by default, so if your culture is different you must call this function to get properly translated resources. This method exists in all the static Library classes in the VDF if you are not using all 4 DLLs.

app.config

To reduce memory usage and improve performance for file transfers, the .NET app.config file for your application consuming the VDF needs to be modified. Find or create the <configSections> portion and add the following line: 

<section name="microsoft.web.services3" type="Microsoft.Web.Services3.Configuration.WebServicesConfiguration, Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>

Then, add the following somewhere in the <configuration> section: 

<microsoft.web.services3>
    <messaging>
      <maxMessageLength value="51200">
      </maxMessageLength>
      <mtom clientMode="On"/>
    </messaging>
    <security>
      <!-- Specifies the time buffer used by WSE to determine when a SOAP message is valid.
             set to the max of 24hr in seconds -->
      <timeToleranceInSeconds value="86400"/>
    </security>
  </microsoft.web.services3>
Parent topic: Developing with the VDF

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