Web/Tech
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In the last post, we looked at the core technology we're going to use to expose our web-service, along with the basic project set-up. In today's post, we're going to flesh out this project and see the web-service in action. At this point, I should point out that I've switched back across for VS2010 for the purposes of this post (and its immediate successors), as it really will simplify the eventual integration with Windows Azure. Before we dive into the implementation of our web-service, here are a few words on what we're after… We want to implement two web-service APIs:…
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As promised, here begins the technical portion of the series on moving application functionality to the cloud. As suggested, we're going to take code from a couple of previous posts and put it in the cloud (although not immediately – first we're going to move it to a local web-service, consume that in AutoCAD, and then look at our various cloud-hosting options). So why did I choose these two pieces of code, in particular? A couple of reasons: firstly, they both implement "behind-the-scenes" algorithms that are independent of AutoCAD – a typical piece of business logic that companies might choose…
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I mentioned some time ago that our Localization Services (LS) team was embarking on a community-based translation of Homestyler into Russian. The fruits of this labour are now ready for testing: the various translation projects, for the application, for its content and for supporting web-pages are now 100% complete. But that's not to say things haven't been missed or mis-translated, so we would love to get feedback from Russian speakers on the quality of the work performed. The below information has been provided by our LS team for people who are interested in taking Russian Homestyler for a spin (and…
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I've been meaning to post on this topic for some time, and a recent comment reminded me to do so. As many of you will have noticed, when you do a straight copy & paste of code from this blog into Visual Studio, it comes with unwanted line feeds. For instance, taking some recently posted code using Internet Explorer 9: And pasting it into VS2010 results in unwanted linefeeds in the code: Less than ideal, to say the least. The reason this happens is probably the way the HTML gets formatted by the CopySourceAsHtml tool I use to get the…
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Actually, I wish that were true. I'm planning on taking some time off in October, but that seems a long way off, at this stage. What I've actually been doing is working with some REST-based APIs: firstly, I've been finishing up work on September's Plugin of the Month, TransTips for AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, & 3ds Max (to be posted on Autodesk Labs in the next few days). TransTips makes use of the REST API for Bing Translator, to automatically translate tooltips in various products. Secondly, perhaps more excitingly, I've been coding against a possible future web service API for Project Photofly.…
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Here's something that's a little off-topic – relative to my other posts – but potentially of interest to fellow bloggers, people who have their own websites and even readers who're using Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7. Since attending the Microsoft TechDays 11 event in Geneva, back in April, I've been meaning to fool around with enabling this site for pinning to the Windows 7 taskbar, with some special customizations for IE9. And now that I actually have a Windows 7 installation (albeit inside Parallels on my Mac), I've been able to do just that. At the root of customizing…
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I'll be delivering a Facecast on AutoCAD Customization next Tuesday, July 19th 2011 at 5pm CET / 8am PST. If you'd like to attend, please RSVP via this Facebook page. The timing on the page seems to be for 3 hours, but I've been told the session will last around 30 minutes. I'll embed a viewer onto the Facecast – for people to watch live and after the fact – inside a blog post on Tuesday, so you can also just come here, then. If you need some help working out the time of the session in your location, I…
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It's been a while since I've talked about AutoCAD WS, even though the application is proving hugely popular on its various platforms: whether inside a web browser or on iOS and Android devices. There have been some really interesting capabilities exposed, lately, which are making it increasingly interesting to the development community. One, in particular, that I'd like to talk about today is the ability for AutoCAD WS to connect to sites supporting the WebDAV protocol. I've used WebDAV a number of times, over the years, mainly with ProjectPoint and SharePoint. It's certainly possible to set up your own WebDAV…
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I talked briefly about TED, a few weeks ago. A number of Autodesk employees attend this event, including members of our senior staff. During a recent All Hands session, Amar Hanspal – who heads up our Platforms Solutions and Emerging Business division, which includes both Autodesk Labs and AutoCAD Engineering (among other teams) – reported on his experience at TED 2011, and talked about a couple of extremely inspiring presentations. One of them, by Salman Khan, discussed a non-profit organisation he had set up to help educate people on mathematics (and now other subjects). Thought-provoking stuff: it certainly has me…
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I'm just taking a few days off to visit family in Italy. We're sitting in a brand-new EuroCity train on its way from Bern to Milano Centrale. Aside from it being very comfortable – which is new, most of the other times I've made this journey have been in cattle-wagons – it's got one cool feature I hadn't seen before and simply had to mention: real-time tracking of our progress inside Google Earth displayed on overhead screens inside the cabin. Now you needn't even look out of the window to see where you are! Simply marvelous! Unfortunately this visualization of…