If you take a step back and look at AutoCAD and ObjectARX – its a huge body of work and it is a challenge to get experience in all the various parts of it.  The recent request I received on how to control the AutoCAD ribbon from Visual Lisp or the command line and the subsequent research, code and blog post I wrote made me think,  what if I solicited small problems from the AutoCAD community that could make fun little 4 hour research projects.  These would allow me to dig into various portions of ObjectARX.NET once a week, write some fun code, and give me things to write about.  Everybody wins!

I’m looking to spend about 4-6 hours on each question.  I’m hoping to do one question per week, assuming I get enough requests.  I’ll provide the full source and project with each post.  All code will be written in c#.  Some examples of valid requests would be:

• Submit a Visual Lisp routine to convert to ObjectARX.NET.
• Request a particular routine that does some sort of drawing clean up or modifies something.
• Identify some functionality that is missing in AutoCAD.
• Request a piece of sample code explaining how to use API x of ObjectARX.NET or Mapguide Enterprise/Open Source.

The Do’s

• Please keep your request realistic.   I’ve only got 4 to 6 hours and you’re not paying me =)
• Please submit specific functionality along with sample data.
• Please be available to answer any questions  I might have via e-mail, phone/skype or possibly gotomeeting.
• Please keep the underlying technology somewhat current.  Don’ t request AutoCAD/Mapguide 2007.
• Please review my code and comment if you see something wrong or that I could do more efficiently.  This is about me learning and I’m gonna make mistakes.

The Don’ts

• Don’t expect days worth of work, I just don’t have that much spare time.
• Don’t ask me to work on your project (unless of course you want to hire my team via ChasmTech).
• Please don’t get upset if I don’t pick your question.
• I did my ten odd years in the trenches writing Visual Lisp – I don’t really want to write any more, so please don’t ask for lisp code.
• Don’t be a ass.  I don’t have time for asses.

Let’s See What Happens

So I have no idea how this will play out.  I don’t know if 4-6 hours is a reasonable amount of time to allocate each week to do this right.   I don’t know if I will be able to make the time every week.  Maybe I’ll change it from “Question of the Week” to “Question of the Every Second Week”.  I’m going to put this out there and see what happens.   I reserve the right to change anything and everything! s  E-mail your requests to contact ~@~ geospecialling dot com.

Remotesoft Protector Runtime Error – yet to handle multiple .NET framework runtime

One other symptom of this was that .exe files would just blow chunks.  I’ve finally figured out what was causing this!  Most of our products are protected during the nightly builds.  This error however is specific to assemblies protected using the the Remotesoft .NET Explorer UI.  When using this application for the protect or obfuscate functionality it is really just a front end around the protector.exe/obfuscator.exe.  The UI is building the following command line string and tonight it finally dawned on me:

Command: C:\Program Files (x86)\Remotesoft\Protector\bin\protector.exe -neutral -resource -string -cctor -clrversion v2.0.50727 "C:\temp\SmartInk for Kahua\SmartInk.UI.exe"

The UI was forcing the clr version to .NET 2.0 – when my assemblies are all built against .NET 4.0.  Oops…

After a bit of digging I found that you can set the CLR version in .NET Explorer from the Action / CLR Version menu item.  Unfortunately it has not been updated to support .NET 4.0 – and so has been rendered pretty much useless as a front end for protector.

The Fix

The only solution is to use the command line to execute your protection.   The updated command line ended up looking pretty similar:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Remotesoft\Protector\bin\protector.exe" -neutral -resource -string  -clrversion v4.0.30319 "C:\temp\SmartInk for Kahua\SmartInk.UI.exe"

There you have it – I can’t believe I missed that…

"ERROR: Unable to update the dependencies of the project. The dependencies for the object ‘NHibernate.Validator.DLL’ cannot be determined."

One of my three Visual Studio 2010 installer projects started failing during the automated build process with this error on a dozen included assemblies.  When the project was built using the Visual Studio IDE the installer would build just fine.  With a little bit of digging and a great deal of screwing around, I found a Microsoft KB article and hotfix for this problem.

After installing the patch – my automated build system is happily compiling the installation project.

First, download the actual non-aplha release of LINQ to XSD and extract it.  You will need to have .NET 3.5 installed to run LINQ to XSD.  The project itself is a Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4.0 project.  You should be able to change it to .NET 3.5 with no problems.  I’m not sure about using .NET 2.0.   I still assume these steps should work with Mapguide Open Source 2.2 given its pretty much the same thing as MGE 2011.  Please let me know if you try it and that is not the case.

Building the classes

Last time around we had to mess around with Visual Studio projects, building temporary code, finding and extracting that code from temporary files.  This time around, we’re given a nice little executable that can be run in a batch file.   I’ve posted a copy of my batch file below but it was simply made using a dir /b > CreateMapguideNetObjects.cmd in the Mapguide server schema folder (which by default is to c:\Program Files\Autodesk\MapGuideEnterprise2011\Server\Schema) .  I then edited that file with a text editor that support macros and removed the following schema files:

• FdoProviderCapabilities-1.0.0.xsd
• LoadProcedure-1.0.0.xsd
• LoadProcedure-1.1.0.xsd
• LayerDefinition-1.0.0.xsd
• LayerDefinition-1.1.0.xsd
• LayerDefinition-1.2.0.xsd
• SiteInformation-1.0.0.xsd
• SiteVersion-1.0.0.xsd
• SymbolDefinition-1.0.0.xsd
• WebLayout-1.0.0.xsd

These files are deprecated object definitions from previous Mapguide releases.  In the end each line in the batch file looks a little like this:

LinqToXsd ApplicationDefinition-1.0.0.xsd /filename:ApplicationDefinition.cs

Executing the batch file will create a number of C# files containing appropriately named classes.

Setting up your project

At this point you should be able to fire up Visual Studio and create a new C# project.   If you have an existing project from a previous version of Mapguide its good to start fresh.  Also, don’t try this in an existing solution that is dependant on the project that contains the Mapguide objects.  This will just result in a bunch of extra screwing around to avoid compiler errors from missing code during the process.    This time around its a lot easier.  Create a new DLL project.  Add a reference to the Xml.Schema.Linq.dll file that was included with LinqToXsd.exe.   Add a reference to the following Mapguide dlls:

• OSGeo.Mapguide.Foundation
• OSGeo.Mapguide.Geometry
• OSGeo.Mapguide.MapguideCommon
• OSGeo.Mapguide.PlatformBase
• OSGeo.Mapguide.Web

You’ll also need to ensure that the appropriate unmanaged assemblies are available in the calling applications bin folder when you go to run this stuff. 

Next place all of the generated C# files in the new project.  Once you build you’re going to see a ton of errors.  We’ll clean those up.

To resolve a lot of these errors I did a global search and replace on “global::” and replaced it with nothing.  Also, I wrapped each class in a unique wrapper classes to prevent duplicate type errors.  Finally, the case issue with DataType was still an issue – and I resolved it by changing the case on DataType to be Datatype:

   1: public string DataType {

   2: public string Datatype {

For a complete view of the changes I made do a file compare between the code in the attached zip file and your newly generated code.

<insert 3 week gap here, wherein I had a hell of a time getting MGE 2011 installed and properly licensed so that I could actually test this newly created code, oh and I also went on vacation for a few days too =)/>

And back.  The best part about this is that it seems ALL my old RADE code just worked with upgraded basic layouts after changing it to look for the object definitions within the new wrapper classes.   Now I just need to add support for flexible layouts and we’ll be laughing.

The Code

Please note – I didn’t rebase the code.  It’s all in the RADE.MGE namespace.  If you would like to use it, feel free to re-base it – or just leave it as is.  Also, if you create any unit tests or enhancements and would like to share them – please feel free!  

As I update the project myself, or receive updates I will update this file.

. 

Finally, the example code I posted long ago will still work with this new project.  Perhaps one day, I’ll post some fancy new code in C# =)

Hope this comes in handy, I welcome your comments.

Came across Automapper.   This is a perfect match for my needs:

AutoMapper uses a fluent configuration API to define an object-object mapping strategy.   AutoMapper uses a convention-based matching algorithm to match up source to destination values. Currently, AutoMapper is geared towards model projection scenarios to flatten complex object models to DTOs and other simple objects, whose design is better suited for serialization, communication, messaging, or simply an anti-corruption layer between the domain and application layer.

It was quick to setup, and painless to use.  First define your object to object mappings:

   1: Mapper.CreateMap<RADE.BO.Domain.Application, RADE.BO.Entity.Application>();

   1: /// <summary>

   2: /// Convert a DTOApplication to abnd 

   3: /// </summary>

   4: /// <param name="app"></param>

   5: /// <returns></returns>

   6: public static RADE.BO.Domain.Application Convert(Application app)

   7: {

   8:   if (app == null) return null;

   9:   LoadDtoMappings();

  10:   return AutoMapper.Mapper.Map<Application, RADE.BO.Domain.Application>(app);

  11: }

  12:  

  13: /// <summary>

  14: /// Convert a list of domain Application objects to DTO Application objects

  15: /// </summary>

  16: /// <param name="apps">List of domain Application objects</param>

  17: /// <returns>List of DTO Application objects</returns>

  18: public static List<Application> Convert(List<RADE.BO.Domain.Application> apps)

  19: {

  20:     LoadDtoMappings();

  21:     return apps.Select(AutoMapper.Mapper.Map<RADE.BO.Domain.Application, Application>).ToList();

  22: }

It’s important to note that if your source object contains nested objects – a mapping for each nested object must also be defined.  This goes on recursively through nested objects.  My domain Application object contains some numerous sub objects – Map, Layer etc.  In this case rather than establish mappings for these child objects – I removed these objects from my DTO as the client consuming these objects would never need that data.  This also keeps the size of any data possibly being serialized down.   Automapper dealt with this automatically.

I’ve only scratched the surface of what Automapper can do.  Next step is to define unit test coverage using the configuration validation, but it’s sleep time now… =)

http://msdn.microsoft.com

wooo!

In the meantime, The Register has a good write up on some of the new goodies coming in an hour or so.  That will learn me for getting up early.  Oh well, time for another cap!

In long – for a number of reasons there was not a strait line between upgrading my machine to SP1 and noticing the problem.  This made diagnosing the problem significantly more complicated because I had no idea when it actually started.  At the time, I was dealing with x64 and Oracle clients.  This had prompted me to start doing all my dev in an XP virtual machine.  Eventually, the slowless of developing in a VM drove me insane and I just had to get my machine working again.  So I got Oracle dealt with – but that left this annoying error.

It was a complete fluke that I noticed this.  The stars aligned, and I manually compiled some assemblies, instead of pushing the big green button on my build system.  This resulted in my assemblies not being run through the Remotesoft Protector.  All of a sudden the problem went away.  At the time I had been using Protector 2.x which would not support .NET 3.5 SP1 fully. So, either stop using Protector, or upgrade to the latest version which resolves this problem =)

However, in most cases you’re better off using a form and posting your data up to the server side that way, as the limitations on data are so large you will likely not need to worry about them.  Sometimes, query strings can also show your users just a little too much information – though I’m by no means a proponent of "security through obscurity" hiding a little bit more from your users will keep the curious ones a little more in check =).

When working with Mapguide Enterprise/Mapguide Open Source we need to grab some potentially massive XML strings from the MgMap object and pass these along to the server side for processing.  Take the selection XML from the MgMap object, even a single entity selection can use a significant portion of the characters available in the query string.  On top of that, passing this data via query string requires that the data be URL encoded, using even more of our precious query string characters.

Depending on the design of your application it may not always be feasible to define a hard coded form, or even a form defined server side using ASP.NET.  In some cases (you guessed it – my case) you may want to use javascript and do all the work on the client side to define a form and pass the data long that way.

Well you’re in luck, I found a pretty nice solution (WELL, at least I’m liking it  =]).   I’m kicking myself for not realizing this long ago, but oh well.  So the following javascript function demonstrates how to build, add, populate, and submit a form on the fly using some information from the MgMap object.

   1: function postData()   

   2: {   3: //get the map   

   3: mapObj = GetMap();   

   4:  

   5: //define the new form   

   6: var newForm = document.createElement("form");   

   7: //set the method to POST - the opposite of query strings..   

   8: newForm.method="POST";  

   9:  //add the new form to the current document  

  10:  document.body.appendChild(newForm);  

  11:  

  12:  //lets get some data and add it to the form  

  13:  AddFormElement(newForm, "MapName", oMap.GetMapName());  

  14:  AddFormElement(newForm, "SID", oMap.GetSessionId());  

  15:  //be sure you escape the selection XML - or you will get an error on post about a   

  16:  //"potentially dangerous form value".  Remember on the server side to Server.UrlDecode() it  

  17:  AddFormElement(newForm, "sel", escape(oMap.GetSelectionXML()));  

  18:  

  19:  //lets create our new window  

  20:  var szTarget = "targetWin"  

  21:  newForm.target = szTarget;  

  22:  //set the name/path of the ASPX file you want to process your form with  

  23:  newForm.action = "/url_to_open/file.aspx"  

  24:  

  25:  //open a new window to submit the form to.  Its a good idea to have a blank.htm so you don't get a file not found error  

  26:  var oWin = window.open("blank.htm",szTarget,'menubar=yes, resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes, status=no,toolbar=no,width=300, height=300');  

  27:  

  28:  //give the window focus.  Users like this  

  29:  oWin.focus();  

  30:  

  31:  //submit the form - it will now open in the new window  

  32:  newForm.submit();  

  33:  //remove the form from the document, we're done with it  

  34:  document.body.removeChild(newForm);  

  35:  }  

  36:  

  37:  function AddFormElement(form, elementName, elementVal)  

  38:  {  

  39:      var newElement = document.createElement("<input name='" + elementName + "' type='hidden'/>");  

  40:      newElement.value = elementVal;  

  41:      form.appendChild(newElement);  

  42:      return form;  

  43:  }

On the server side, you can now access this data from ASP.NET using Request.Form, for example Request.Form("MapName") would give you the map name.  Don’t forget when retrieving the selection XML to run that through Server.UrlDecode, or HttpUtility.UrlDecode.

As usual, any comments, bugs, or rotten fruit – send em my way.  Enjoy!

Report looked good.  The results were sorting, checkboxes working.   Wait a minute, I selected the entire map.  There should be more than twenty items returned.  So a quick search of my twelve thousand saved e-mails from the Mapguide Users mailing list turned up what needed to be done.  Fortunately Autodesk added a GenerateFilters call to MgSelection.  This call returns an MgStringCollection of filters.

Basically the solution to this problem is to use GenerateFilters instead of GenerateFilter, and loop through the results.  Each time, appending the returned keys to the complete list.  For example:

   1: Public Shared Function GetSelectedKeysString(ByRef siteConn As MgSiteConnection, _

   2:     ByRef resSvc As MgResourceService, ByVal oMap As MgMap, ByVal SessionId As String, _

   3:     ByVal SelectionXML As String, ByVal layerResID As MgResourceIdentifier, _

   4:     ByVal keyFieldName As String) As String

   5:  

   6:     Dim szKeys As String = ""

   7:     Dim oSel As New MgSelection(oMap)

   8:     oSel.FromXml(SelectionXML)

   9:     Dim curLay As MgLayerBase

  10:     'isolate the layer

  11:     For Each layerItem As MgLayerBase In oSel.GetLayers

  12:         If layerItem.Name = layerResID.Name Then

  13:             curLay = layerItem

  14:         End If

  15:     Next

  16:  

  17:     Dim featSvc As MgFeatureService = siteConn.CreateService(MgServiceType.FeatureService)

  18:     Dim queryOptions As New MgFeatureQueryOptions

  19:     Dim featureClassName As String = curLay.GetFeatureClassName

  20:     'workaround using GenerateFilters and looping through the results as needed

  21:     Dim featureReader As MgFeatureReader

  22:     Dim filters As MgStringCollection = oSel.GenerateFilters(curLay, featureClassName, 20)

  23:     Dim filterCnt As Integer = 0

  24:     While filterCnt < filters.GetCount

  25:         queryOptions.SetFilter(filters.GetItem(filterCnt))

  26:         featureReader = featSvc.SelectFeatures(New MgResourceIdentifier(curLay.GetFeatureSourceId), featureClassName, queryOptions)

  27:         While featureReader.ReadNext

  28:             If szKeys = "" Then

  29:                 szKeys = ConvertPropertyToString(featureReader, keyFieldName)

  30:             Else

  31:                 szKeys &= "," & ConvertPropertyToString(featureReader, keyFieldName)

  32:             End If

  33:         End While

  34:         featureReader.Close()

  35:         featureReader.Dispose()

  36:         filterCnt += 1

  37:     End While

  38:     Return szKeys

  39: End Function

In this code, we get the selection from the MgMap object and then isolate the layer in question.  Then we generate the collection of filters and loop through them.  Each time, adding the appropriate value to the list of keys.  Note the use of ConverPropertyToString, this needs to be used to ensure that the various data types are converted over to string.

.  If you’re looking for a C# example of how to use GenerateFilters one is provided in the source for buffers.aspx.

After making these changes my reports now look all proper! hurray.  Maybe I can hit the sack now?  nahh.

NHibernate was a tough curve for me.  Initially, I started testing code generators.  After spending a significant amount of time reading, testing, and pulling out hair I came to the conclusion that NHibernate code generation is still not there.  From my experiences Genwise is probably the best code generator out there right now – but its still lacking in some areas.  More importantly however, I learned that code generation is not a good place to start when implementing NHibernate for the first time.  There is so much going on under the hood – in my opinion you need to start off doing a reasonable size project by hand.  Code generation has significant benefits, because the generated code is so similar with simple replacements it just makes a lot of sense once you wrap your head around what’s going on with NHibernate.

As per my previous post on ReSharper when implementing nHibernate by hand, ReSharper is a must have.  Just the other day I found a *great* ReSharper NHibernate Plugin.  When editing NHibernate HBM XML files, it does a bunch of validation right in the editor.  Saves you a lot of time finding problems without having to actually run a unit test and debug sometimes cryptic error messages.

I bought a copy of NHibernate In Action.  I would recommend this book to you only if you have no experience, or understanding of Object Relational Mappers.  As the book stands right now, it’s not really a good developer reference and only covers really basic examples.  The documents that helped me the most to get everything up and running was The NHibernate FAQ.  The NHibernate documentation is pretty cryptic.  Don’t read this stuff 12 hours into your day.  No amount of RedBull will give you the focus needed to make sense of it.  In the first 8 hours of the day, its quite helpful.

I primarily work in VB.NET.  For this project however, I switched to C#.  Maybe now, the my colleagues at Bear Mountain will stop giving me a hard time =).  Seriously though.  Examples are a LOT easier to come by in C#, probably 10:1.

Finally, get NUnit running.  I had a lot of problems using the built in Microsoft Test projects with NHibernate – so I’ll be sticking with NUnit. If you’ve never done unit testing (you know who you are) do it.  Particularly in this case – its crucial.  You (Again you know who you are =]) used to write simple winform apps, and put a bunch of buttons on them.  Don’t do that. 

So, if you are one of the RADE non-developer users and you read on this far.  Congrats.  This milestone will not directly help you with your use of RADE.  However, it’s a large step forward for the underlying architecture – and you will benefit from that. 

Well back to Visual Studio I go..

First, download and install Oracle 11g ODAC and Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio. (Link requires registration)   This should get the 32bit stuff installed.   I’m still using an Oracle 10g R2 server.  You will likely need to grab a copy of the TNSnames.ora for your existing client folder and place it in the appropriate tree of the 11g product home.

This however is not enough to get .NET working with ODP.  Go to the folder where you extracted the zip.  We need to find the Oracle.DataAccess.dll.  This can be found in the file named filegroup4.jar, in the stage\components\oracle.ntoledb.odp_net_2.  Winrar will open .jar files if needed.  Extract the Oracle.DataAscess.dll file.

For now, I’ve put a copy of this file in my projects lib folder.  I then added a reference directly to this file from all projects that need ODP access. 

Keep in mind – before you ship you may want to remove this reference and ensure that the .DLL file doesn’t get included in your build.  This should get your Vista x64 box developing with ODP.

To Oracle – come on guys.  Give us some Vista x64 love!

So a data connection was created pointing to the Oracle 10g schema.  This database contained a number of tables containing Lat/Long point geometry entities.  I created a layer pointing to the table in question.  I created a layer pointing to that data connection.  At this point the entities showed up as expected in the both the DWF and the AJAX viewers.  Once again, I could not select any of the entities.  I checked the server logs, no errors were reported.

In troubleshoot mode, I tried just about everything I could think of but nothing would work.  I simplified the theme, created new layers, removed all other layers from them map.  Eventually I created a new layer from another table.  Luckily, the entities on this layer could be selected.  It must be a problem with the underlying data.  On a hunch, I checked the table definitions – specifically looking at primary keys.  The selectable layer had a primary key defined, the problem layer did not.  (Good thing I cannot take credit for creating this source data =))

So, I created a primary key on the problem table, did a touch on the layer definition (opening the definition in Studio and saving it without any changes) and then left for twenty minutes.  I’m thinking there is some sort of caching going within the server, and I’m not sure how it works.  Immediately reloading the map after adding the primary key did not work – the entities were still not selectable.  When I came back – the items in the viewers were now selectable.

So long story short, if again you cannot select map entities using the Autodesk FDO Provider for Oracle ensure that the source table has a primary key defined.  Hopefully this saves someone some grief =)

One of my first tasks with Mapguide Enterprise was to build a map on the fly.  There were examples for adding layers to the map programmatically after the viewer had loaded, but this didn’t match the desired flow of my application.  Also, having come from years of Mapguide 6.5 and lower -  I was trying to avoid as much client side automation as possible.  The new Web Tier API was one of the things that excited me the most about Mapguide Enterprise / Mapguide Open Source

I’ve pasted the full, commented code here, as well as attached a solution containing the two projects needed.  Note these projects are Visual Studio 2008 projects.  Please feel free to use this code for learning purposes.  If it helps you out, link back to this article =)

If you choose instead to create a new project, be sure to add a project or DLL reference to the OSGeo.Mapguide.Objects.dll file we created previously .  The project I’ve included here contains both the sample Web Application project, as well as a copy of the .NET objects for Mapguide project.  It should be almost ready for the running.  Also ensure there is a reference to the Microsoft.XML.Schema.Linq namespace added to the project.  Also copy the required .DLL files from the Autodesk provided .NET viewer\bin folder to the web projects bin folder.  I did not include these here as I was not sure of the legality of doing so.

First load up the Sheboygan package into your Mapguide repository.  For the purposes of this example, open the Map definition in Mapguide Studio (or equivalent) and remove all the layers and layer groups from the map.  If you forget to do this you will get a Duplicate Object error when you load up the map.  Once that is done, you are ready to try out the code.

You should be able top unzip the zip and open the MGEDynamicAuthoringSample.sln file with Visual Studio.  Pretty much the only thing you may need to change are the constants to match your machine specific items:

   1: 'set some contants up - webconfig.ini, map viewer url, Map, Layout and Layer locatinos

   2: Private Const gszWebConfig As String = "C:\inetpub\MapGuideEnterprise2009\WebServerExtensions\www\webconfig.ini"

   3: Private Const gszViewerUrl As String = "http://localhost/mapguide2009/mapviewerdwf"

   4: Private Const gszMapResID As String = "Library://Samples/Sheboygan/Maps/Sheboygan.MapDefinition"

   5: Private Const gszLayerFolderResID As String = "Library://Samples/Sheboygan/Layers.Folder"

   6: Private Const gszLayoutResID As String = "Library://Samples/Sheboygan/Layouts/SheboyganAsp.WebLayout"

   7: 'lets run with Administrator for noew to eliminate permission problems.  Update your password as needed, or specify your

   8: 'own credentials if you are comfortable with setting up repository permissions.

   9: Private Const gszMGUser As String = "Administrator"

  10: Private Const gszMGPass As String = "admin"

Once you’ve changed all the needed settings, you should be good to go.  Run the code in Visual Studio and you should now see a map similar to the default Sheboygan map.  The key difference is that all of the layers will exist within the layer group we created programmatically.

Commented Codebehind:

   1: Imports OSGeo.MapGuide

   2: 'we still need to import and use system.xml, but don't really need to use many parts of the XML

   3: 'functionality =)

   4: Imports System.Xml

   5: Partial Public Class _Default

   6:     '' 'So for this example, we're going to use the sheboygan sample package available from 

   7:     '' ' http://mapguide.osgeo.org/download/releases/2.0.x-samples.  Be sure to grab both the 

   8:     '' ' dotnetviewstample.zip as well as the sheboygan.mgp.  Import the package using

   9:     '' ' the mapguide site administrator.  I've tried to use the default resource paths

  10:     '' ' but some tweaking of map will be needed

  11:     '' ' 

  12:     '' ' Open the map definition in Studio, and remove all the layers from Samples/Sheboygan/Maps/Sheboygan.MapDefinition 

  13:     '' ' we're going to add them dynamically    

  14:  

  15:     Inherits System.Web.UI.Page

  16:  

  17:     'set some contants up - webconfig.ini, map viewer url, Map, Layout and Layer locatinos

  18:     Private Const gszWebConfig As String = "C:\inetpub\MapGuideEnterprise2009\WebServerExtensions\www\webconfig.ini"

  19:     Private Const gszViewerUrl As String = "http://localhost/mapguide2009/mapviewerdwf"

  20:     Private Const gszMapResID As String = "Library://Samples/Sheboygan/Maps/Sheboygan.MapDefinition"

  21:     Private Const gszLayerFolderResID As String = "Library://Samples/Sheboygan/Layers.Folder"

  22:     Private Const gszLayoutResID As String = "Library://Samples/Sheboygan/Layouts/SheboyganAsp.WebLayout"

  23:     Private Const gszMGUser As String = "Administrator"

  24:     Private Const gszMGPass As String = "admin"

  25:  

  26:     ''' <summary>

  27:     ''' Page_Load does everything =)  Be sure to copy the dll files from your mapviewernet\bin folder to this projects bin folder.

  28:     ''' I did not include them as that might have violated some autodesk license.    

  29:     ''' </summary>

  30:     ''' <param name="sender"></param>

  31:     ''' <param name="e"></param>

  32:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

  33:     Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load

  34:  

  35:         'setup our siteconnection

  36:         Dim siteConnection As New MgSiteConnection

  37:         siteConnection = CreateMGSession(gszMGUser, gszMGPass, gszWebConfig)

  38:         Dim szSessionId As String = siteConnection.GetSite.CreateSession()

  39:  

  40:         'create our connection to the resource service

  41:         Dim resSvc As MgResourceService

  42:         resSvc = siteConnection.CreateService(MgServiceType.ResourceService)

  43:  

  44:         'get or set the resourceid of the map to load - in this case i'm just going to hard code it

  45:         Dim mapResourceID As New MgResourceIdentifier(gszMapResID)

  46:  

  47:         'load the existing map from the libary into an XML document

  48:         Dim mapXML As XmlDocument = GetResourceXML(resSvc, mapResourceID)

  49:  

  50:         'so at this point we have an XML document.  Let's try using our new OSGeo.Mapguide.Object classes

  51:         Dim newMapDefinition As New OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapDefinition

  52:  

  53:         'to load the xml - call the shared/static method of MapDefinition.Parse on the OuterXML of the XMLDocument

  54:         newMapDefinition = OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapDefinition.Parse(mapXML.OuterXml)

  55:  

  56:         'at this point we have a loaded .NET Object containing the map.  Try using Intellisense to see the different methods

  57:         'Lets add a layer group now

  58:  

  59:         'add any needed layer groups to the map.  In this example we're only going to add one.

  60:         Dim szLayerGroupName As String = "NewLayerGroup"

  61:         Dim szLayerGroupAlias As String = "My Layer Group Alias"

  62:         newMapDefinition = AddMapLayerGroup(newMapDefinition, szLayerGroupName, szLayerGroupAlias)

  63:  

  64:         'get or set the resourceid of the folder that contains our layers to add

  65:         Dim layerPath As New MgResourceIdentifier(gszLayerFolderResID)

  66:  

  67:         'so we now have a layer group in our map.  Lets add the layers

  68:         AddFolderOfLayers(resSvc, newMapDefinition, layerPath, szLayerGroupName)

  69:  

  70:         'at this point our map definition is loaded.  Lets convert it back to XML and save it to the session

  71:         Dim newMapDoc As New XmlDocument

  72:         newMapDoc.PreserveWhitespace = True

  73:  

  74:         Dim szXML As String = newMapDefinition.Untyped.ToString

  75:         newMapDoc.LoadXml(szXML)

  76:  

  77:         'create our 'new' resourceID in the session repository

  78:         Dim newMapResourceID As New MgResourceIdentifier("Session:" & szSessionId & "//" & mapResourceID.GetName() & "." & MgResourceType.MapDefinition)

  79:  

  80:         'save the newly created map in the session repository

  81:         CreateSessionResource(resSvc, newMapDoc, szSessionId, newMapResourceID.GetName, MgResourceType.MapDefinition)

  82:  

  83:         'now lets deal with the layout - we need to load up the library layout, update the map definition, and save it to the repository

  84:         Dim layoutResourceID As New MgResourceIdentifier(gszLayoutResID)

  85:         Dim newLayoutResourceID As New MgResourceIdentifier("Session:" & szSessionId & "//" & layoutResourceID.GetName() & "." & MgResourceType.WebLayout)

  86:  

  87:         'same process here, load the XML, parse the XML into the new .net Object

  88:         Dim layoutXML As XmlDocument = GetResourceXML(resSvc, layoutResourceID)

  89:  

  90:         Dim newLayout As New OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.WebLayout

  91:         newLayout = OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.WebLayout.Parse(layoutXML.OuterXml)

  92:  

  93:         'update the map resource ID in the layout to point to our newly created map in the session

  94:         newLayout.Map.ResourceId = newMapResourceID.ToString

  95:  

  96:         'finally go through the motinos to save the layout to the session

  97:         Dim newLayoutXML As New XmlDocument

  98:         newLayoutXML.PreserveWhitespace = True

  99:         newLayoutXML.LoadXml(newLayout.Untyped.ToString())

 100:  

 101:         CreateSessionResource(resSvc, newLayoutXML, szSessionId, newLayoutResourceID.GetName, MgResourceType.WebLayout)

 102:  

 103:         'our last step is to update the src attribute of the iframe with the information needed to load the newly created layout

 104:         SetupIFrame(newLayoutResourceID, szSessionId)

 105:     End Sub

 106:     Private Sub SetupIFrame(ByVal layoutResId As MgResourceIdentifier, ByVal szSessionID As String)

 107:         'build the URL based on our constants, and the layout + session info

 108:         Dim szUrl As String = gszViewerUrl & "?WEBLAYOUT=" & layoutResId.ToString & "&SESSION=" & szSessionID

 109:  

 110:         'update the iframe

 111:         ifrmViewer.Attributes.Add("src", szUrl)

 112:     End Sub

 113:     ''' <summary>

 114:     ''' Adds a layer group to the passed MapDefinition, and returns the updated MapDefinition Object.

 115:     ''' If desired, additional parameters could be added to this to customize the various other properties

 116:     ''' like ShowInLegend etc        

 117:     ''' </summary>

 118:     ''' <param name="mapDef">The loaded MapDefinition obect</param>

 119:     ''' <param name="szLayerGroupName">The Layer Name of the new layer group</param>

 120:     ''' <param name="szLayerGroupAlias">The Layer Alias of the new layer group</param>

 121:     ''' <returns>the passed MapDefinition, with the new layer group added</returns>

 122:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 123:     Public Shared Function AddMapLayerGroup(ByVal mapDef As OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapDefinition, ByVal szLayerGroupName As String, ByVal szLayerGroupAlias As String) As OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapDefinition

 124:         Dim newLayGRoup As New OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapLayerGroupType

 125:         newLayGRoup.Name = szLayerGroupName

 126:         newLayGRoup.LegendLabel = szLayerGroupAlias

 127:         newLayGRoup.ShowInLegend = "True"

 128:         newLayGRoup.ExpandInLegend = "True"

 129:         newLayGRoup.Visible = "True"

 130:         newLayGRoup.Group = ""

 131:         mapDef.MapLayerGroup.Add(newLayGRoup)

 132:         Return mapDef

 133:     End Function

 134:  

 135:     ''' <summary>

 136:     ''' Adds all layer definitions within the specified repository folder to the specified map

 137:     ''' </summary>

 138:     ''' <param name="resSvc">An open resource service connection</param>

 139:     ''' <param name="newMap">the MapDefinition object to modify</param>

 140:     ''' <param name="resLocation">The folder in the repository to search for layer objects</param>

 141:     ''' <returns>Update MapDefinition object</returns>

 142:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 143:     Public Shared Function AddFolderOfLayers(ByRef resSvc As MgResourceService, ByVal newMap As OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapDefinition, ByVal resLocation As MgResourceIdentifier, ByVal szLayerGroupName As String) As OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapDefinition

 144:         'get the list of layers in the folder

 145:         Dim resList As OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.ResourceList

 146:         'use GetAllResources to get a new resList

 147:         resList = GetAllResources(resSvc, resLocation, 1, MgResourceType.LayerDefinition)

 148:  

 149:         'resList items are pretty much a collection of resrouceDocumentLocalTypes so define one of these to use in the for loop

 150:         Dim resItem As OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.ResourceList.ResourceDocumentLocalType

 151:  

 152:         'define a new layerResID to use in the loop

 153:         Dim layerResID As MgResourceIdentifier

 154:  

 155:         'for each layer - process it and add it to the map

 156:         Dim newLayerType As New OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapLayerType

 157:         For Each resItem In resList.ResourceDocument

 158:             layerResID = New MgResourceIdentifier(resItem.ResourceId)

 159:             'for adding a layer to the map - we must use the MapLayerType object 

 160:             newLayerType = New OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.MapLayerType

 161:             newLayerType.ResourceId = layerResID.ToString

 162:             'Be sure to specify the name of the 

 163:             newLayerType.Group = szLayerGroupName

 164:             newLayerType.Name = layerResID.GetName

 165:             newLayerType.Selectable = "false"

 166:             newLayerType.ShowInLegend = "true"

 167:             newLayerType.LegendLabel = layerResID.GetName

 168:             newLayerType.ExpandInLegend = "true"

 169:             newLayerType.Visible = "true"

 170:  

 171:             newMap.MapLayer.Insert(0, newLayerType)

 172:         Next

 173:         'return the updated MapDefinition

 174:         Return newMap

 175:     End Function

 176:  

 177:     'Some handy functions

 178:  

 179:     ''' <summary>

 180:     ''' Saves the specified XMLDocument to the session respository

 181:     ''' </summary>

 182:     ''' <param name="resSvc">The open resource service connection</param>

 183:     ''' <param name="xmlDoc">the XMLDocument to save to the session repository</param>

 184:     ''' <param name="szSessionId">String containing the session ID</param>

 185:     ''' <param name="szName">The name of the newly created object in the repository</param>

 186:     ''' <param name="szResourceType">the object type</param>

 187:     ''' <returns></returns>

 188:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 189:     Public Shared Function CreateSessionResource(ByRef resSvc As MgResourceService, ByVal xmlDoc As XmlDocument, ByVal szSessionId As String, ByVal szName As String, ByVal szResourceType As String) As MgResourceIdentifier

 190:         Dim byteSource As MgByteSource = getByteSource(xmlDoc)

 191:         Dim resID As New MgResourceIdentifier("Session:" & szSessionId & "//" & szName & "." & szResourceType)

 192:         resSvc.SetResource(resID, byteSource.GetReader, Nothing)

 193:         Return resID

 194:     End Function

 195:  

 196:     ''' <summary>

 197:     ''' Returns an MgByteSource for the passed XMLDocument

 198:     ''' </summary>

 199:     ''' <param name="xmlDoc">The XMLDocument to convert</param>

 200:     ''' <returns>MgByteSource of the XMLDocumnet</returns>

 201:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 202:     Public Shared Function getByteSource(ByVal xmlDoc As XmlDocument) As MgByteSource

 203:         Dim xmlStream As New IO.MemoryStream

 204:         xmlDoc.Save(xmlStream)

 205:         Dim arrBytes() As Byte = xmlStream.ToArray()

 206:         Dim Enc As Encoding = Encoding.UTF8

 207:         Dim docString As String = New String(Enc.GetChars(arrBytes))

 208:         arrBytes = Nothing

 209:  

 210:         Dim arrOutput(docString.Length - 1) As Byte

 211:         Dim nByteCount As Integer = Enc.GetBytes(docString, 0, docString.Length, arrOutput, 0)

 212:  

 213:         Dim byteSource As New MgByteSource(arrOutput, arrOutput.Length)

 214:         byteSource.SetMimeType(MgMimeType.Xml)

 215:  

 216:         Return byteSource

 217:     End Function

 218:  

 219:     ''' <summary>

 220:     ''' returns a loaded XML document of the specified resourceID

 221:     ''' </summary>

 222:     ''' <param name="resSvc">An open connection to the Mapguide Resource Service</param>

 223:     ''' <param name="resId">The MgResourceID of the entity in question</param>

 224:     ''' <returns>A loaded XMLDocument of the specified resource</returns>

 225:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 226:     Public Shared Function GetResourceXML(ByRef resSvc As MgResourceService, ByVal resId As MgResourceIdentifier) As XmlDocument

 227:         Dim retDoc As New XmlDocument

 228:         retDoc.PreserveWhitespace = True

 229:  

 230:         Dim szXML As String = resSvc.GetResourceContent(resId).ToString()

 231:         Dim nByteCount As Integer

 232:         Dim arrByte(szXML.Length) As Byte

 233:         nByteCount = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(szXML, 0, szXML.Length, arrByte, 0)

 234:  

 235:         Dim memStream As New IO.MemoryStream(arrByte)

 236:         retDoc.Load(memStream)

 237:         Return retDoc

 238:     End Function

 239:  

 240:  

 241:     ''' <summary>

 242:     ''' Create a new mapguide session and return the resulting session ID

 243:     ''' </summary>

 244:     ''' <param name="szMGUser">Valid mapguide user name</param>

 245:     ''' <param name="szMGPass">Valid password for the specified mapguide user name</param>

 246:     ''' <param name="szMGWebTier">The path to the Mapguide web tier (valid on the mapguide web server</param>

 247:     ''' <returns>MgSiteConnection - the newly created mapguide site connection</returns>

 248:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 249:     Public Shared Function CreateMGSession(ByVal szMGUser As String, ByVal szMGPass As String, ByVal szMGWebTier As String) As MgSiteConnection

 250:         MapGuideApi.MgInitializeWebTier(szMGWebTier)

 251:         Dim siteConnection As New MgSiteConnection()

 252:         siteConnection.Open(New MgUserInformation(szMGUser, szMGPass))

 253:         Return siteConnection

 254:     End Function

 255:  

 256:     ''' <summary>

 257:     ''' Converts MgReader to XMLDocument

 258:     ''' </summary>

 259:     ''' <param name="byteReader">Loaded MgByteReader</param>

 260:     ''' <returns>Loaded XMLDocument</returns>

 261:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 262:     Public Shared Function ConvertMgReaderXml(ByVal byteReader As MgByteReader) As XmlDocument

 263:         Dim szXML As String

 264:         Try

 265:             szXML = byteReader.ToString

 266:         Catch ex As Exception

 267:             Throw ex

 268:         End Try

 269:         Dim nByteCount As Integer

 270:         Dim arrByte(szXML.Length) As Byte

 271:         Try

 272:             nByteCount = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(szXML, 0, szXML.Length, arrByte, 0)

 273:         Catch ex As Exception

 274:             Throw ex

 275:         End Try

 276:  

 277:         Dim memStream As New IO.MemoryStream(arrByte)

 278:         Dim retDoc As New XmlDocument

 279:         retDoc.PreserveWhitespace = True

 280:         Try

 281:             retDoc.Load(memStream)

 282:         Catch ex As Exception

 283:             memStream.Close()

 284:             memStream.Dispose()

 285:             Throw ex

 286:         End Try

 287:         memStream.Close()

 288:         memStream.Dispose()

 289:         Return retDoc

 290:     End Function

 291:  

 292:     ''' <summary>

 293:     ''' Gets a ResourceList for each item in the specified repository folder.

 294:     ''' </summary>

 295:     ''' <param name="resSvc">The opened resource server connection</param>

 296:     ''' <param name="resId">The MgResourceId of the folder we want to enumerate</param>

 297:     ''' <param name="nDepth">The folder depth to enumerate.  From the Mapguide Web API Reference:

 298:     ''' (int) Recursion depth, relative to the specified resource.

 299:     '''* If the resource is a document, depth must be set to 0.

 300:     '''* If the resource is a folder:

 301:     '''      o If the depth is equal to 0, only information about the specified folder is returned.

 302:     '''      o If the depth is greater than 0, information about the folder and its descendants up to the specified depth are returned.

 303:     '''* If the depth is -1, information about the folder and all its descendants is returned.

 304:     ''' </param>

 305:     ''' <param name="szType">Again from the Mapguide Web API Reference:

 306:     '''     (String/string) Type of the resource to be enumerated. (Case sensitive.) See MgResourceType  for valid types. If the type is a folder, 

 307:     '''     you must include the trailing slash.

 308:     '''     Or, this can be set to null, in which case information about all resource types is returned

 309:     ''' </param>

 310:     ''' <returns>OSGeo.Mapguide.Objects.ResourceList of resource entities</returns>

 311:     ''' <remarks></remarks>

 312:     Public Shared Function GetAllResources(ByRef resSvc As MgResourceService, ByVal resId As MgResourceIdentifier, ByVal nDepth As Integer, ByVal szType As String) As OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.ResourceList

 313:         Dim retDoc As XmlDocument

 314:         retDoc = ConvertMgReaderXml(resSvc.EnumerateResources(resId, nDepth, szType))

 315:  

 316:         Dim resourceList As New OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.ResourceList

 317:         resourceList = OSGeo.MapGuide.Objects.ResourceList.Parse(retDoc.OuterXml)

 318:         Return resourceList

 319:     End Function

 320: End Class

If you have any questions or comments – feel free to let me know.

One of my first tasks with Mapguide was to add some layers to the map, before the viewer had loaded up, save that map in the session repository and then build a layout for the map – again in the session repository.  I tried various ways of working with the XML provided by the resource  service, and read through many of the e-mails on the topic from the Osgeo list, but I just couldn’t get it to work.  So I set out on my mission to get an object based method of getting things done.  First, as per the developer documentation I tried out xsd.exe.  XSD allowed me to get a class skeleton created, but there was a lot of work needed to a rounded API running.   I had been recently investigating the new functionality Microsoft was exposing with LINQ – and I came across LINQ to XSD.  For more information on Linq to XSD the Microsoft XML team blog is a good place to start. 

So download LINQ to XSD Alpha 0.2 and install it.  You will need to have .NET 3.5 installed first.  In addition to that I’m using Visual Studio 2008 Pro.  I have tried these steps with both Mapguide Enterprise 2008 and  2009.  I have to assume the resulting code will work with Mapguide Open Source as well.

Setting up your project

At this point you should be able to fire up Visual Studio and create a new project.  If you are a VB developer, I’m afraid you’re going to have to dive into a bit of C#, as its the only support language right now.  It’s not that bad.

The new project window should look a little like this:

Choose LINQ to XSD Library and give the project a name.  Once the new project is loaded, create a new folder called XSD.  Browse to your Mapguide 2009/OS 2.0 server Schema folder (on a default installation its c:\Program Files\Autodesk\MapGuideEnterprise2009\Server\Schema).  Take a these files and drag them into the new XSD folder.

Back in Visual Studio, select all of the XSD files.  Look in the property window and change the "Build Action" to be "LinqToXsdSchema".

Building the project

At this point, right click on the project in Visual Studio, and choose build.  You should have 173 errors.  This is caused by having multiple, similar versions of some of the XSDs.  Let’s exclude the following files:

• FdoProviderCapabilities-1.0.0.xsd
• LayerDefinition-1.0.0.xsd
• LayerDefinition-1.1.0.xsd
• LoadProcedure-1.0.0.xsd
• SymbolDefinition-1.0.0.xsd

Rebuild the project and we should be down to five errors.  I have found that by excluding the following files I was able to get the code to generate:

• ApplicationDefinition-1.0.0.xsd
• ApplicationDefinitionInfo-1.0.0.xsd
• SymbolLibrary-1.0.0.xsd

For my purposes, I was not too concerned about being able to work with these entity types programmatically (at least at this time).  If anyone is able to work around and would like to share it, please let me know.

Build the project again, and we will see three new errors.  This time we will need to dig into the generated code to correct them.  For each of the three errors we will want to change the public string name.  For example:

   1: public string DataType {

We would change to:

   1: public string Datatype {

Change the case of the property name in each of the three errors and we are just about there.  At this point you should have around 42904 lines of code in this file.  Good thing I didn’t try to do this manually.   Take a copy of all these wonderful lines o’ code, and we’re going to paste them into a new class. For the sake of this example, I renamed class1.cs to be OSGeo.Mapguide.Objects.cs and pasted the code in there.  I also wrapped all the code in a namespace to match the file name.

If you need to find the generated code, take a look in the obj folder within your project.  You should find a file named LinqToXsdSource.cs in the appropriate build folder.

Next we need to prevent the XSDs from rebuilding each time.  Select all of your XSD files again, and change the "Build Action" to "None".    Building the project at this point will generate fifty some odd errors.  We can eliminate these by doing a search and replace on global:: and replacing it with an empty string.  Build the project again, and you will find one error.  Simply remove the "global." from the line in question and the project will now build.

At this point, you should have a nice .dll file which you can reference from your projects and access many of the Mapguide entity types using objects.  Be sure to grab a copy of Microsoft.XmlSchema.Linq.dll and distribute that with your new DLL.

This project maybe have some issues.  I have worked with LayerDefinitions, MapDefinitions, and WebLayouts – but not tested many of the classes here yet.  If you have any feedback or enhancements you want to share – please let me know!

In the next week I will post some examples on how to build maps and layouts – before the viewer has loaded.

I saved a copy of the dynamically generated maps and layers to the library repository.  Everything checked out.  The layers were marked as selectable.

Next step was to check out the server logs on my Mapguide server.    We have a nice error occurring a lot: Error: An exception occurred in FDO component. String does not represent a valid filter.

So into the code I go.  I ripped out all my dynamic authoring calls, and the map loads and selects no problem.  As I was starting to suspect, my code was to blame – and there is something specific to my filters on the layers:

   1: newLayer.VectorLayerDefinition.Filter = "BLDG_ID = """ & szBldgID & """ AND BLDG_FLOOR "" IN(0," & nFloorNumber.ToString & ")"""

I had assumed that FDO had an IN clause, did a quick check in Mapguide Studio’s condition builder and didn’t see one.  Fair enough, in this case I can get by with two equals conditions in my select as the list of conditions will only ever consist of two values.

   1: newLayer.VectorLayerDefinition.Filter = "BLDG_ID = " & szBldgID & " AND (BLDG_FLOOR = 0 OR BLDG_FLOOR = " & nFloorNumber.ToString & ")"

   2: 'newLayer.VectorLayerDefinition.Filter = "BLDG_ID = " & szBldgID & " AND BLDG_FLOOR  IN(0," & nFloorNumber.ToString & ")"""

Long story short, if you are selecting items in the map viewer that are supposed to be selectable, check your server logs.

I found this problem when trying to programmatically retrieve a feature set of  the current selection.  When the SetFilter method on the MgFeatureQueryOptions call was issued I was receiving a  "Not Implemented" error.  After a bit of back and forth with Steve Dang at Autodesk he gave me a list of valid  database property types for the SetFilter call:

   1: //The problem is from the web tier.  Note that the  MgSelectionBase::GenerateFilter method

   2: //will throw an  MgNotImplementedException if the property type of the filtered data

   3: //is not one of the following types: 

   4:  

   5: MgPropertyType::Int16

   6: MgPropertyType::Int32

   7: MgPropertyType::Int64

   8: MgPropertyType::String

   9: MgPropertyType::Single

  10: MgPropertyType::Double

This got me looking at my underlying fields, and eventually I noticed in the ODBC data connection the key fields for the table in question contained a  number of columns that just should not have been there.  The problem field was a date column – which would explain why the SetFilter call was throwing and error.  Upon closer inspection I realized that these columns were constrained with "Not Null" constraints. 

So I changed my source database and removed the not null constraints.  Went back to studio to refresh the table – but the columns were still there.  Long story short – there is possibly another defect somewhere in Mapguide around data connections.  They seem to not fully update when you make changes to them.  However, creating a new data connection and pointing to the same SQL server database now shows keys without the null columns.

Moving forward in my code now generated the selection filter and things were good.

I proposed to Autodesk that they auto populate the key fields but then allow the user to modify this list, in addition to correcting the not null constraint issue.   It seems as though all primary and foreign keys are being found for the table/view and added to the list.  Fair enough, however in the view I was working with I had something like 10+ keys (due to the joins of data tables, as well as the needed lookup tables).   In reality – I only was interested in one of those fields.  Filtering based on that one field was enough to uniquely identify the data in question.  I’m not really familiar with the way FDO does things so this might not be possible.