Hello,
I have several manuals for which I'm developing a query tool. There will be
others that need to be plugged in sometime in the future. To streamline the
integration of those manuals in the future, I would like to make my interface
seemlessly know all the manuals currently available at any given time. I have
what I think is a pretty good foundation design but it lacks the ability to
use intellisense and I'd like advice on how to approach this issue.
I currently have developed a DLL project that contains properties and
methods generic across all manuals. I've also developed a DLL project for
each of the individual manuals to handle properties and methods unique to a
given manual.
The generic project has virtual classes with mustinherit methods and
protected properties. Those classes will be inherited by each of the manual
specific project classes.
I think the best way to seemlessly integrate new manuals if by using
createobject with the progid of the user specific manual stored in an xml
file. So, I use CreateObject to instantiate the manual specific classes into
a variable of the generic class type to get intellisense help with the
properties and methods that are consistent across all manuals. Because I get
the combo boxes loaded via an xml file and other important information, such
as the progid for the CreateObject from the xml file, I have architected this
app to seemlessly accept manuals as they are developed.
Unfortunately, because I use CreateObject for the manual specific classes, I
can't seem to design an architecture that will provide me the seemless
integration and the intellisense for development.
Any advice?
Jack