December 7, 2020
by Viktor Kovacs

Archicad Extension and Automation Technologies

Archicad has several ways to extend its functionality or automate your workflow, so you have to choose the tool that best fits your needs. This article will summarize the possibilities to make you easier to choose. Add-On API (C++) The Add-On API is the ultimate tool to extend Archicad. You…


October 5, 2020
by Viktor Kovacs
modified at November 5, 2020

CMake Template for Archicad Add-Ons

We are happy to announce our latest development to make Archicad Add-On developers’ life easier — a CMake template for C++ Add-On development. With this solution you can easily generate IDE projects for Archicad Add-Ons, so you can work in your favorite environment. CMake supports Visual Studio and XCode projects,…


March 16, 2020
by Tibor Lorántfy
modified at June 23, 2021

How to get MDID for my Add-On?

All add-ons must have a resource named ‘MDID’ with a resource ID of 32500. This resource defines the unique ID of the add-on.The ‘MDID’ is composed from two parts: Developer ID: the ID of the developer, given by GRAPHISOFT after a successfull registration. Local ID: the ID of the add-on,…


November 27, 2019
by Ákos Somorjai
modified at February 2, 2022

Notarizing add-ons for macOS Catalina

When you download anything on macOS from the internet, the download mechanism adds extra info to the downloaded file (called the quarantine flag; you can check for it with ls -lA@ [you_add-on].bundle). This informs the operating the system that the downloaded file may contain malicious code, and so the operating system…


September 11, 2019
by Tibor Lorántfy
modified at September 19, 2024

Browser control in ARCHICAD and JavaScript connection

Since ARCHICAD 23 the Dialog Manager modul was extended with a Browser control. The Browser control uses the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). Using this control an embedded browser can be implemented inside ARCHICAD, which can load any site from a given URL. Using JavaScript the loaded site can communicate with…


June 26, 2019
by Tibor Lorántfy
modified at July 19, 2019

New API features in ARCHICAD 23

This outline summarizes the major new features and changes in the API available with ARCHICAD 23. Technical changes [Windows only] ARCHICAD 23 uses the Visual Studio 2017 toolset for building Add-On projects. Do not worry, you can use Visual Studio 2019 also for building! Make sure to set “Visual Studio…


March 29, 2019
by Gyuri Nyitrai
modified at July 19, 2019

API for BIMx mobile apps

I’m happy to announce that from now not only ARCHICAD offers API but certain functions of BIMx on mobile also accessible for development partners. BIMx API provides a bi-directional live connection between any web-enabled data management system and BIMx mobile apps both on iOS and Android platforms. We developed the…


January 16, 2019
by Tibor Lorántfy
modified at January 21, 2019

How to Create Multi-Language Add-On

Content Windows platform macOS platform Name of Add-Ons folder in different Language versions of ARCHICAD Windows platform Introduction Before ARCHICAD 22 an ARCHICAD Add-On was a single “.apx” executable file which contained both executable code and resources. That prevented to create multi-language Add-Ons, the Add-On developers have to build separate…


July 5, 2018
by Tibor Lorántfy
modified at July 19, 2019

Hello, world! Part 2: Dialog with text, SVG icon and button

Ákos Somorjai has already written a post about “Hello, world!”. It helps to create a simple text element with “Hello, API world!” content. Now, in this post, I will show you how to create a simple dialog with a “Hello World” text label on it. And this will be also…


June 12, 2018
by Tibor Lorántfy
modified at December 12, 2019

HDPI support using DG module

macOS HDPI Environment So called “Retina” display gives users ultra-sharp text and graphics without making the interface too small to see. To achive this the system renders the user interface with four times as many pixels (twice the vertical and twice the horizontal resolutions). ARCHICAD supports perfect high resolution display on…