Plug-in Interface

http://www.divil.co.uk/net/articles/plugins/plugins.asp

I have found this article on the topic. It is a very good article, but all it describes is how to access plug-in methods. I would like to know how to import a panel (or other control) created by a plug-in. All of the panel events can stay in the plug-in. Is there an easy way to do this without changing everything this guy has created? Or can you suggest a better article explaining implementation of plug-ins in a VB.NET application?

http://www.divil.co.uk/net/articles/plugins/plugins.asp

Well the way I do it is to send a reference of my form, or whatever container to use to put new controls on, to the plugin via some kind of loading method of the plugin.

Sub Load(ByRef myForm as System.Windows.Forms.Form)

Then the plugin takes that reference and adds whatever it needs to to the pased form.

I used a TabControl for a test I did once where the plugin added a new tab to the main apps form

looked like this

VB Code:

Public Class Chat
    Implements Interfaces.IPlugin
 
    Dim tb As TextBox
    Public Sub Panel_Init(ByRef tab As TabControl) Implements Interfaces.IPlugin.Panel_Init
        Dim page As TabPage
        Dim x As Long
 
        Dim tb2 As TextBox
        Dim g As New GroupBox()
 
        ' Create a new tab
        page = New TabPage()
        page.Text = "Chat"
        page.Name = "Chat"
 
        g.Name = "beauh"
        g.Tag = CStr(page.TabIndex)
        g.Text = "blah"
        g.Anchor = AnchorStyles.Bottom Or AnchorStyles.Left Or AnchorStyles.Right Or AnchorStyles.Top
 
        ' Create textbox that will appear in Home tab
        tb = New TextBox()
        tb.Name = "tbChat"
        tb.Multiline = True
        tb.Top = g.Top + 15
        tb.Left = g.Left + 8
        tb.Height = g.Height - 400
        tb.Width = g.Width - 16
        tb.Anchor = AnchorStyles.Bottom Or AnchorStyles.Left Or AnchorStyles.Right Or AnchorStyles.Top
        ' Add textbox to tab page and tab page to tab container.
 
 
        tb2 = New TextBox()
        tb2.Name = "tbSend"
        tb2.Multiline = True
        tb2.Top = g.Height - 75
        tb2.Height = 50
        tb2.Left = g.Left + 8
        tb2.Width = g.Width - 16
        tb2.Anchor = AnchorStyles.Bottom Or AnchorStyles.Left Or AnchorStyles.Right
        ' Add textbox to tab page and tab page to tab container.
        g.Controls.Add(tb)
        g.Controls.Add(tb2)
        page.Controls.Add(g)
        tab.TabPages.Add(page)
        'tb = Nothing
        SharedDLLTest.Test.Name = "Hello"
        'MessageBox.Show(System.Environment.UserName)
 
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub go() Implements Interfaces.IPlugin.go
        tb.Text = SharedDLLTest.Test.PluginCollection.Count
    End Sub
End Class

That's awesome, thanks a bunch. That really helped, I'm gonna try it when I get home. I see that you are the main authority on plug-ins.

i've tried seting to my form a reference to the panel and that wont work, at least the way i did

anyways i overcame the problem adding the panel to the form control's collection

How do I handle events on the plugin, Say I created a new tab page like Cander posted, How do I handle events on that tab page?

*bump*

when you create the plugin just do its events as they will get attached to it when you load the panel with your main form

Thanks for the speady reply, I think I have kinda figured it out. I'm just working on how to get info to the main form calling the plugin now.