Plug-in architecture for ASP.NET MVC

by

I did a proof of concept a few weeks ago where I put a complete stack of components: a model class, a controller class and their associated views into a DLL, added/tweaked one of the examples of the VirtualPathProvider classes that retrieve the views so they’d address those in the DLL appropriately.

In the end, I just dropped the DLL into an appropriately configured MVC app and it worked just like if it had been part of the MVC app from the start. I pushed it a bit further and it worked with 5 of these little mini-MVC plugins just fine. Obviously, you have to watch your references and config dependencies when shuffling it all around, but it did work.

The exercise was aimed at plugin functionality for an MVC-based platform I’m building for a client. There are a core set of controllers and views that are augmented by more optional ones in each instance of the site. We’re going to be making those optional bits into these modular DLL plugins. So far so good.

I wrote up an overview of my prototype and a sample solution for ASP.NET MVC plugins on my site.

EDIT: 4 years on, I’ve been doing quite a few ASP.NET MVC apps with plugins and no longer use the method I describe above. At this point, I run all of my plugins through MEF and don’t put controllers into plugins at all. Rather, I make generic controllers that use the routing information to select MEF plugins and hand the work off to the plugin, etc. Just thought I’d add since this answer gets hit a fair bit.

More Related Contents:

  1. What are the main disadvantages of Java Server Faces 2.0?
  2. How do you redirect to a page using the POST verb?
  3. How to set a Default Route (To an Area) in MVC
  4. ASP.NET MVC Routing Via Method Attributes [closed]
  5. Dependency Injection with Ninject and Filter attribute for asp.net mvc
  6. How to use Bind Prefix?
  7. How do I get the referrer URL in an ASP.NET MVC action?
  8. where is the best place to save images from users upload
  9. Using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations with Entity Framework 4.0
  10. Using HtmlHelper in a Controller
  11. How to change ‘data-val-number’ message validation in MVC while it is generated by @Html helper
  12. MVC [HttpPost/HttpGet] for Action
  13. DropDownList setting selected item in asp.net MVC
  14. ASP.NET MVC3 and Windows Auth on IIS keeps redirecting to /Account/Login
  15. HttpPost vs HttpGet attributes in MVC: Why use HttpPost?
  16. asp.net mvc keep object alive, information
  17. DAL -> BLL
  18. ASP.NET MVC – Catch All Route And Default Route
  19. maxlength attribute of a text box from the DataAnnotations StringLength in Asp.Net MVC
  20. Model backing a DB Context has changed; Consider Code First Migrations
  21. Passing parameter to controller action from a Html.ActionLink
  22. How to reuse Areas, Controllers, Views, Models, Routes in multiple apps or websites
  23. NHibernate: How do I XmlSerialize an ISet?
  24. How to set default value to select list in MVC during run time
  25. how to add script src inside a View when using Layout
  26. EntityType ‘Category’ has no key defined. Define the key for this EntityType [duplicate]
  27. How Would I Change ASP.NET MVC Views Based on Device Type?
  28. VS2013 does not compile ASP.NET MVC5 views
  29. ViewBag vs Model, in MVC.NET [closed]
  30. Should I use AsyncController at ASP.NET MVC 4?

Leave a Comment