Skyline DataMiner SDK

The Skyline DataMiner Software Development Kit is a specialized SDK developed and maintained by Skyline Communications. It extends Microsoft's .NET SDK and seamlessly integrates into standard compilation and publishing activities provided by Microsoft.

This allows developers to move away from separate tooling and benefit from an out-of-the-box, integrated development experience. With the Skyline DataMiner SDK, everything you need to develop, build, and publish DataMiner artifacts within the .NET ecosystem is readily available.

We have simplified the installation and usage by leveraging the .NET Templating Engine and offering the Skyline.DataMiner.VisualStudioTemplates.

Supported project types

The Skyline DataMiner SDK currently supports the following project types:

DataMiner Package Project
DataMiner Ad Hoc Data Source Project
DataMiner Automation Script Library Project
DataMiner Automation Script Project
DataMiner User-Defined API Project

Getting started

To get started, you can:

Install the DIS (DataMiner Integration Studio) extension on Visual Studio, which includes the templates by default.

Install the templates directly using the .NET CLI:

dotnet new install Skyline.DataMiner.VisualStudioTemplates

These templates include a helpful wizard for Visual Studio and well-documented CLI arguments for creating projects using the dotnet command.

When you create a project, a GettingStarted.md file will be added to your project directory. This file provides detailed instructions on how to work with each project type.

Key features and actions

The Skyline DataMiner SDK hooks into the compilation and publishing processes to streamline the creation of DataMiner application packages and Catalog uploads.

Compilation: creating DataMiner application packages

During the compilation of a Skyline.DataMiner.SDK project, the SDK checks whether the project property GenerateDataMinerPackage is set to true. If this is the case, it uses the DataMinerType property to generate additional output files specific to the project type:

*.dmapp file: Represents a DataMiner application package containing the content of your project, ready to be installed on a DataMiner System.
*.zip file: Represents Catalog information used for publishing the package to the DataMiner Catalog.

Publishing: uploading to the DataMiner Catalog

When you publish a Skyline.DataMiner.SDK project, the SDK checks whether the GenerateDataMinerPackage property is set to true. If this is the case, it checks the CatalogPublishKeyName property for the name of an environment variable or Visual Studio secret containing a system key or organization key.

The publishing process uploads the following artifacts to the DataMiner Catalog:

The *.dmapp file containing the package content
The *.zip file containing catalog information

The following inputs are required for successful publishing: