Programmatically Create Importable AddOn

Desktop SDK - Add Ons
1

I have several files in several folders that comprise my AddOn code which I import as an AddOn on a second machine.

So far I’ve been using the NinjaTrader Export Add-On feature but it’s extremely tedious with so many files.

I created c# code to compile all the files into a folder where I generate the zip archive using the Windows 11 context menu.

The archive has the exact same files, file content, and structure as the NT Export Ninjascript Add-On archive.

Yet, importing on the other machine I get “Selected file was made from an older, incompatible version of NinjaTrader or is not a NinjaScript archive.”

  • Does NT embed some hidden meta data in the .zip file or something?
  • Could it be sensitive to the file encoding for the info.xml file?
  • Is it possibly some difference in the way the archive is compiled?

Has anyone made this work?

Thanks.

2

I’ve never seen this issue. What I usually do for large addons is temporarily remove everything else that is not part of it. Afterwards, you can just select all the files during the export process. Another solution to your issue is to just extract the files into the AddOns directory, compile and not import your custom created zip.

3

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I’m aware of these workarounds. I’m specifically interested in if anyone has successfully created the zip file manually (or programmatically) not using the NT Export Add-On feature, and then successfully imported as an Add-On.

4

I think it could possibly be everything you are asking with the exception of some hidden meta data. You have to make sure everything is exactly as what NT will export it as… so same structure in the zip, casing for everything, even making sure slashes are the same and the schema and file encoding for the xml. If you haven’t try something simple to see if you can find the culprit.

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5

Turns out I had lowercased info.xml. Changing to Info.xml solved the problem.

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