Assemblies problem

[Shilpa]

Hi All,

I am creating an add-in for some third party tools A and B.
The add-in has a single GUI that is used in both A and B. The add-in
is build by referencing dlls from A and B.
The problem is, When I run this add-in on a client machine, both
softwares A and B have to be installed. Otherwise, the add-in gives an
ugly error saying it could not find the referenced dlls.
Is there a way programmatically to load these dlls when necessary and
work with them without adding them as reference during coding?

Regards,
Shilpa

[Peter Bradley]

All a reference does is to tell your application where to find the types you
want to use. Logically, it seems unlikely that anything is going to get
loaded if the application doesn't know where it is.

As for the problem on deployment, how are you going to call the library
methods if the assemblies aren't present?

I'm finding it hard to understand your problem.

Hmm, actually, are you trying to say that at deployment time you only need
one or the other: not both? If so, your best bet, I think, would be to
write two tools, one for each library, in separate projects. That way you
only reference the code needed by the specific project. Depending on the
architecture of your application, you may be able to do something with
inheritance or interfaces to abstract out the common elements.
Peter

"Shilpa" <sh*************@unisys.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@30g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

Hi All,

I am creating an add-in for some third party tools A and B.
The add-in has a single GUI that is used in both A and B. The add-in
is build by referencing dlls from A and B.
The problem is, When I run this add-in on a client machine, both
softwares A and B have to be installed. Otherwise, the add-in gives an
ugly error saying it could not find the referenced dlls.
Is there a way programmatically to load these dlls when necessary and
work with them without adding them as reference during coding?

Regards,
Shilpa

[Mike Schilling]

"Shilpa" <sh*************@unisys.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@30g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

Hi All,

I am creating an add-in for some third party tools A and B.
The add-in has a single GUI that is used in both A and B. The add-in
is build by referencing dlls from A and B.
The problem is, When I run this add-in on a client machine, both
softwares A and B have to be installed. Otherwise, the add-in gives an
ugly error saying it could not find the referenced dlls.
Is there a way programmatically to load these dlls when necessary and
work with them without adding them as reference during coding?

Referenced DLLs are loaded lazily, i.e. when you first reference a class
contained in that DLL. Try organizing your top-level code to start with
something like:

bool aIsOK;
bool bIsOK;

try
{
// reference something in A;
...
aIsOK = true;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
aIsOK = false;
}
try
{
// reference something in B;
...
bIsOK = true;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
bIsOK = false;
}

and thereafter only call the application(s) which loaded successfully.