Getting Started with Estrelica.Core

If this is your first time using Estrelica.Core, or even if you're new to Archer integration development in general, the best place to start is by cloning the Estrelica.Core.Demos solution at https://github.com/CastleHillSoftware/Estrelica.Core.Demos. This .NET solution includes several .NET demo projects that you can open in Visual Studio or VS Code. They'll show you various ways to use Estrelica.Core to interact with Archer's configuration and content, as well as some general patterns typical of Archer integration projects.

(Feel free to fork the Demos solution and submit pull requests for any modifications or new demo apps you'd like to share with others.)

NuGet Packages

The Estrelica.Core package is available from CastleHill Software's NuGet server. To install Estrelica.Core, open the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio by right-clicking your solution and choosing "Manage NuGet Packages for Solution", then click the gear icon shown in the upper right corner:

This will open a dialog which allows you to add CastleHill Software's NuGet server as a source. Simply click the green "+" button to add a new package source, then enter "CastleHill Software" and "https://nuget.castlehillsoftware.com/nuget" into the "Name" and "Source" text inputs, respectively, and click the "Update" button to save the change.

Make sure that you have added a new source at this point by clicking the "+" button. By default, the package source editor will open with the first source highlighted in edit mode and if you immediately start typing in the "Name" and "Source" inputs, you'll actually be modifying one of your existing sources (typically nuget.org). Be careful to create a new "CastleHill Software" source entry and make sure it's selected before making any of the changes described here.

Then you can click the "OK" button to close the dialog.

When you first open the Estrelica.Core.Demos solution, it will automatically pull down the latest Estrelica.Core release so you can get started right away.

When you're ready to start developing .NET Archer integration applications from the ground up, you can add the Estrelica.Core NuGet package to your .NET projects via the NuGet Package Manager by searching for "Estrelica".

A supporting package named Estrelica.Core.Configuration can be installed via NuGet as well. This package is optional, but introduces a new method to facilitate development and deployment by keeping all configuration information (e.g. license authentication, Archer connection details and credentials) in a standard appSettings.json file. This greatly simplifies configuring the Core to target multiple Archer instances and keeps your source code cleaner by allowing variable and/or sensitive information like the Archer credentials of all your team's developers to be kept in local "user secrets" files that won't get committed to your source repository.

All projects in the Estrelica.Core.Demos solution reference the Estrelica.Core.Configuration package, so you'll see examples of how the CoreConfig.Load() method is called there.

In order to run the demos, you'll need to configure appSettings.json or your local user secrets file with the authentication key provided to you by CastleHill Software and the connection details (username, instance, password, URL) to your Archer instance.

When you're ready to start implementing your own Archer integration projects with Estrelica.Core, see connecting to Archer.