I need to develop a plugin based application framework.
The framework or host app needs to handle all the "common"
or "underlying" functionality including connecting and
updating a remote database, connecting to the internet,
passing soap messages etc.
The user interface will be made up of plugins that the
user can install or uninstall. These gui plugins also
need to communicate (calling methods, raising events,
etc.) with eachother and be able to pass data to
eachother. The framework should also allow for the
creation and installation of custom plugins which will
also be able to communicate with the framwork / host app
and the other plugins aswell.
I'm really not sure where to start or how to create
a "plugin" architecture. I think I need to use reflection
or extensibility to complete this task. I would want the
entire framework and the plugin components to be
customizable ( I envisioned using xml files and parameters
with a wizard type interface to allow users to
customize). In addition the plugins and the framework
would need to expose their interfaces (i think) so that
other developers can create additional plugins and also to
use my plugins in their applications by interacting with
the exposed methods, events, properties.
Best Regards,
Michael Crawford.
