Building Archicad Example Add-on on Mac

One of my projects involves adding extra functionality to BIM software such as Archicad or Revit. I got started with Archicad because it supports Mac and it offers a demo version and several demo projects for me to learn and experiment.

Bootstrapping the Example Add-on

I found an old tutorial for building Archicad add-ons - Getting started with Archicad Add-Ons. The command for generating an Xcode project on Mac resulted in a CMake error:

CMake Error at Tools/CMakeCommon.cmake:177 (set_target_properties):
  set_target_properties Can not find target to add properties to:
  /Users/ivy/.../APIDevKit-27
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  CMakeLists.txt:25 (GenerateAddOnProject)

Turns out the addOnName variable was not set.

I noticed another set of setup instructions within the archicad-addon-cmake repository. I cloned the repository from scratch and tried the Python script, changed it to python3 and the Archicad DevKit versions to 27 and 28, and it worked well to generate a valid Xcode project:

$ git clone https://github.com/GRAPHISOFT/archicad-addon-cmake.git --recurse-submodules
$ python3 Tools/BuildAddOn.py --configFile config.json --acVersion 27 28

Building the Xcode project

The Xcode project is located at Build/ExampleAddOn/27/INT/ExampleAddOn.xcodeproj and Build/ExampleAddOn/28/INT/ExampleAddOn.xcodeproj, one for each Archicad DevKit version.

Then I opened the first Xcode project in Xcode, clicked the build button, everything went smoothly, the bundle file is located in Build/ExampleAddOn/27/INT/Debug/ExampleAddOn.bundle.

Testing the Example Add-on

To see the Add-on in action, I opened Archicad 27 in demo mode, opened the Gino project. To load the add-on, go to Options -> Add-on Manager….

Expand EDIT LIST OF AVAILABLE ADD-ONS, click Add..., then specify the bundle from the Xcode project. Somehow I had to restart Archicad to make the yellow warning sign icon disappear from the Add-on list. Then finally, in the Options menu the Example AddOn Command... shows up:

It doesn’t do much other than showing a dialog with OK and Cancel buttons.

But that’s a start! Now I can move on to build the extra functionalities. 🙂