Launch Document Edit Profile from VB.NET 2005

Hey All,

I'm currently trying to launch a documents Edit Profile Dialog from vb.net 2005. I have incorporated references to the following assemblies using interops created using the .net tblimp.exe tool:

- IManage.dll (8.0.223.0)
- IManExt.dll (8.0.114.0)
- IManOXP.dll (8.0.110.0)
- IPortabl.dll (8.0.46.0)

I can successfully access the objects within the assemblies without any issues, however I could really do with some guidance on the best way to achieve what I'm trying to do.

To date i have been following the example in the document "Using WorkSite SDK Dialogs.pdf" (specifically examples on page 34). However this does not seem to allow me to configure the session correctly, and ultimately tries to point to the "WorkSite Briefcase" as the server. Following which the code fails with the following error:

"IManExt: Failure occurred in Portable Edit Profile Dialog!

iManage.NRTDMS.2

[NRTDocument ][Database(get) ]This object is no longer valid "

Can anyone give me some pointers that will get me on track with this?

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Comments

jny

At a higher level, would you explain what you're trying to accomplish? It could be that you might not be using the approriate dialog object.

matt_woodward

Sure no problem Smiley Happy

Basically the firm I work at is introducing a new working process whereby users can scan documents straight into the DMS. The one down side of this is that users do not want to profile the scanned document at the scanner as it is very labourius. This results in having documents with very little detail on the profile, which is clearly unhelpful.

To ensure documents are profiled by the users, we want to prompt with the edit profile dialog when a document with a document class of "SCAN" is opened.

At this point its worth mentioning we will only be dealing with Microsoft Word Documents and Adobe Acrobat PDFs.

Now for the Microsoft Word documents that will come through with this document class, I have been able to utilise VBA to access the application events and prompt with the edit profile dialog successfully.

The real problem has been catering for PDF's.

Having gone through the support process, researched and posted on here it seems there is no support for Adobe Acrobat Reader integration at this point. So to avoid writing a plug in for Adobe Acrobat Reader in C++, what I am doing is writing a windows application, using vb.net 2005 which will be responsible for opening PDF's on a client machine. The application will run through the same series of check as in done for the vba and as necessary prompt with the edit profile dialog, whilst in the back ground loading the pdf in Adobe Acrobat Reader as per normal.

I have been able to get to the point where I need to launch the Edit Profile Dialog. Here I have both access to the native NRTDocument object,and a handle to the parent window - but no working process to actually be able to launch an edit profile dialog. A bit of a fundamental stumbling block!

I am continuing to research and go through trial and error using the sdk documentation, but would really appreciate some input from anyone that has done similar work.

Let me know if there's anything I've missed out that you feel would help.

matt_woodward

I have been looking at some different methods for accessing dialogs today using the Command Objects. To try and provide you with the best insight as possible as to what I am currently working with, please see the code sample below. This is practically a copy and paste of the sdk documentation ("WorkSite Extension Library Reference Manual.pdf"), with some slight changes to accommodate the syntax differences between VB.Net and its predecessors. (...Continued below)

Public Shared Sub Open(ByVal DocumentId As String, ByVal WindowHandle As IntPtr)

'Declare required variables
Dim DMS As Dms
Dim editProfileCmd As EditProfileCmd
Dim contextItems As ContextItems
Dim arrDocs(0) As NRTDocument
Dim doc As NRTDocument

'Get DMS Connection
DMS = DMS.GetDMS()

'If we have a connection
If Not IsNothing(DMS.Dms) Then

'Load Document Object
doc = DMS.Dms.GetObjectByID(DocumentId)

'Verify We Have A Document To Work With
If Not IsNothing(doc) Then

‘ Assign NRTDocument object to arrDocs array
arrDocs(0) = doc

‘ Create a new ContextItems collection
contextItems = New ContextItems

‘ Create a new EditProfileCmd object
editProfileCmd = New EditProfileCmd

‘ Populate the ContextItems collection with required values
contextItems.Add("ParentWindow", WindowHandle)
contextItems.Add("SelectedNRTDocuments", arrDocs)

‘ Initialize the command with populated ContextItems
‘ collection
editProfileCmd.Initialize(contextItems)

‘ Use the Update method to find out if the command is
‘ available, based on the information posted to the
‘ ContextItems collection
editProfileCmd.Update

‘ If the command is active, it can be executed.
If (editProfileCmd.Status = CommandStatus.nrActiveCommand) Then

'Execute command - i.e. Show Edit Profile Dialog
editProfileCmd.Execute

'Verify if the profile was shown successfully
Dim bRefresh as Boolean = contextItems.Item("IManExt.Refresh")

If bRefresh = True Then
End If

‘ When finished using the ContextItems,
‘ remove them from the collection.
contextItems.Remove("IManExt.Refresh")

End If

‘ When finished using the ContextItems,
‘ remove them from the collection.
contextItems.Remove("ParentWindow")
contextItems.Remove("SelectedNRTDocuments")

End If

'Close DMS Connection
DMS.LogOut()

End If

'Clear Objects From Memory
DMS = Nothing
editProfileCmd = Nothing
contextItems = Nothing
arrDocs = Nothing
doc = Nothing
DocumentId = Nothing
WindowHandle = Nothing

End Sub

This method successfully displays a profile dialog which is a great step forward (yay!). I will continue this thread as I progress in hope it may save others some headaches.

There are still some aspects of the profile which aren't behaving as expected, but I want to test these properly before commenting on them here. So please keep an eye out if you get chance, I may still run into trouble yet!

To be continued....

matt_woodward

Ok what was working perfectly yesterday is now generating the following error:

"IManExt: The document profile for 20429888.1 could not be modified.

IManExt

Type mismatch."

Smiley Frustrated

......Ring any bells with anyone?

Note: I haven't made any fundamental changes that I can foresee would affect this area of the code.

UPDATE: Ignore this - It seems that the registration of the iManage.dll had gotten a little confused. I re-registered it and all is well again. Hopefully the error info may save somebody some time - so i'll leave this post up.

matt_woodward

Right some more information and some more questions. The code posted previously will successfully open the edit profile dialog, and it seems the as long as that code is ran on a client machine with an install of the the desk site software, the dialog will function as "normal" i.e. as you would expect it without any additional code.

I'm slowly starting to piece together how the application functions but do have a more process orientated question...

On the basis I am effectively hijacking a pdf when its opened, I need to tell DeskSite to use my application when opening pdf's. Now taking a look through the Desk Site application files theres an NRTDDE.INI file which is accessed when a document is being checked out, to query what application should be used. Below is an example of one of the application in the INI file:

[ACROBAT]
APPNAME=Acrobat Reader
PRIMARY=Y
PATH=C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader\AcroRd32.exe
DDE=N
ODMA=N
DDEAPPNAME=ACROVIEW
DDETOPIC=CONTROL
DDEOPEN=[FileOpen("??"))]
DDERDOPEN=
DDEPRINT1=[FilePrint("??"))]
DDEPRINT2=

Now I can change the file paths here and my application is used successfully. However, it seems that the document that is being used isn't pulled down to the client machine prior to my application being launched. So the question is, does anyone know if this part of the process is delegated to the application being used or have I missed something?

UPDATE: Right I was looking at "C:\NrtEcho\" rather than the "C:\NrtPortbl" where the documents are pulled down to. Can anyone provide any details on the difference in usage of these two folders?

jny

The Portable directory is used to store documents opened by WorkSite. And, I believe, when Echo is enabled (from the database) then the document and its prf file is moved to the Echo directory once the physical document is closed -- checked in -- from its native app.

matt_woodward

Thanks for that jny.

Now I have come across a pretty fundamental stumbling block today. Following on from what I'm trying to achieve above I have got to the point where I can launch my .net application when the user clicks on a pdf in desksite, and I can show the edit profile dialog.

The next problem is that by this point the document is checked out and I can't actually edit the profile i.e. its read-only.

*sigh*....Any pointers?

matt_woodward

Ok guys, after what has been a pretty steep learning curve and some throbbing headaches, I think I may have been going in completely the wrong direction with this work Smiley Frustrated

.

I have been taking a read about implementing the ICommand interface and hijacking events. Looking at this it seems I could hijack the open event and display the edit profile for the given document classes.

I have tried doing this using .Net 1.1 & 2.0 but am not having much luck. I have changed the entry in the registry as documented but all that seems to happen is that the Open menu item that was standard disappears and ny open menu item does not appear.

Could some be an absolute diamond and give me a quick breakdown on the necessary steps to implementing the ICommand object using VB.Net. I am comfortable with the ins and out of the object, and have read through the comments, but I cant help but feel i'm missing something pretty simple....it's been a long day.... Smiley Sad

I am using Worksite client version 8.0 would this work with dll's created in .Net 1.0 & 2.0??

Any help would be gratefully appreciated!

jny

I've been following your thread, but only know how you're approaching your objective but not clearly understanding what is it.

If you could explain in detail what you're trying to accomplish, I can help you more succinctly.

matt_woodward

Hey jny,

Thanks for following my thread, the support is hugely appreciated. I thought I had covered my objectives in my third post? Just in case that wasn't very clear, here is what i am trying to achieve:

"When a user opens a document through the DeskSite client (v8.0), I need to check if the document class is 'SCAN' and if so, prompt the user to complete the profile of the document correctly before launching its native application."

Note: A document with the class of SCAN will have an incomplete profile and will need user input to provide details for the majority of the profile fields.

I believe the best approach for this is writing an object which inherits the ImanExt.ICommand interface, and will replace the standard iManExt.OpenCmd command object. Can you confirm?

In advance I have been trying to implement this approach using .Net 1.1 and 2.0 but without success. I understand the usage and construction of the command object but could do with some advice with regards to any specifics of its deployment.

E.g. Should the assembly be made com visible? Can the assembly be written using .Net 2.0 if i am using version 8.0 of the DeskSite client? Can you confirm the registry path used to replace the standard command? Are there any specifics I need to consider when deploying my assembly to the client PC or can I just drop the assembly in the applcation folder and manipulate the registry as necessary?

Thanks in advance Smiley Happy

guido1

The WorkSite SDK ships with a working example for hijacking an internal command.

If you have the SDK installed you should be able to find the VB.NET flavour at file://C:\Program Files\Interwoven\WorkSite\iToolKit\iCommands\VB .NET\MyVBNETImanEvt

It was built using VS2003, but will work fine in VS2005 using .NET 2.0.

In order for it to work, you must:

compile the resulting assembly, ensuring your class which implements ICommand is visible to COM
register your assembly (using RegAsm, because this is .NET) so that COM is aware it exists - note that VS will probably do this for you when you compile the project, but I'm mentioning this for completeness
ensure the ICommand's ProgID is inserted in the appropriate part of the Interwoven registry hive (refer to the SDK)

Hope this helps

matt_woodward

Hey Guido,

Thanks for the info, you've successfully nudged me in the right direction! Thanks muchly!

matt_woodward

Hey guys,

I just wanted to conclude this post for future reference. I have today managed to get a .Net 2.0 implementation of Hijacking ICommand events, specifically the Open Command.

I have used this to prompt for the edit profile dialog when a document chosen by a user (through desksite) meets certain criteria, e.g. certain document class.

Thanks to all those who have given me input over the last week or two, it really has been invaluable. If there are any questions then please feel free to get in contact.

Once again many thanks!