Hello World of Dynamo!
This blog post discusses Dynamo Sandbox and the new ways we are distributing it. Sandbox is a simplified Dynamo development environment, and has been around for a while, although many folks don’t know about it. Before we go into what Dynamo Sandbox is, we need to understand what a few other terms mean.
What is Dynamo Core?
Dynamo Core is a collection of bundled components that consist of the graphical interface, the compute engine, the scripting language DesignScript and the out-of-the-box nodes that are not specific to another program like Revit.
What is Dynamo for Revit?
Dynamo for Revit is a collection of Revit specific nodes that work with Dynamo Core and runs inside of Revit.
What is Dynamo Sandbox?
Dynamo Sandbox is for package developers and other folks working with Dynamo code who want to stay up to date with the latest and greatest stuff coming out. Sandbox is Dynamo’s “Core” functionality distributed in a way that doesn’t interfere with other Dynamo installations and doesn’t require any other applications (except for a few windows components and some optional extras).
So did you notice that Daily Builds were down?
Daily Builds are a way for the development team to share the latest progress on Dynamo Core and gather feedback. In the past Daily Builds included an installer for both Dynamo Core and Dynamo for Revit that could only install on top of Revit.
We’ve been busy working on a new release cadence for Daily Builds and are now ready to turn them back on. Moving forward Daily Builds will be posted with a higher frequency – but with one major change.
Daily builds will no longer only install on top of Revit. Instead, they will package up Dynamo Core into a new Dynamo Sandbox executable for you to use and develop upon! Daily Builds allow you to get the newest functionality in real-time, test and then help drive the development of Dynamo by providing feedback – What works, what doesn’t and what you would like to see.
Sandbox will also include the latest daily changes in Dynamo so you can remain up to date but won’t automatically update. To get the latest version you’ll need to manually download again.
Where can I get Dynamo Sandbox from?
You can get the latest Dynamo Sandbox version from either of the following locations:
Both locations provide a zipped download link, called DynamoCoreRuntime, that bundles up Dynamo Sandbox with a bunch of dependencies and allows you to unzip and run Dynamo Sandbox from the location of your choice.
To read more in depth about how to utilize the new incarnation of Daily Builds have a read of our wiki page.
How do these changes affect me?
- As a Dynamo User:
As a Dynamo user, Sandbox allows me to play with the latest functionality that Dynamo Core has to offer. While the new Sandbox will allow me to access to the Package Manager to download new packages, it won’t allow me to publish. Sandbox can also be unzipped into any location of my choice and will not touch the Registry.
Sandbox does not sit upon any host application (Such as Revit) – so any custom nodes containing specific host API functionality will also not be accessible.
- As a Package Author:
As a package author, the new Sandbox allows me to test my work on the latest build to highlight and alert the Dynamo team to any issues.
Sandbox does not contain authentication that means access to the Package Manager is limited to downloads only – Sandbox will not allow me to publish or modify Packages.
- As a Dynamo Developer:
As a Developer building on top of Dynamo, the CLI (Command Line Interface) can now specify ZeroTouch dependencies before running a graph.
Sandbox can be used as a general programming or orchestration interface for other programs as it can run without any other Autodesk program installed.
- As a BIM Manager:
As a BIM Manager you can test host non-specific packages out in a safe environment prior to deployment.
So please download the new Sandbox, have a play and let us know what you think!
The Dynamo Team