Dynamic Modules

Dynamic Modules is a sample prototype for a WPF modular application based on the Prism Library and the Modern UI for WPF (MUI) Toolkit. It is a proof of concept for creating metro-styled, modern UI WPF applications in a plugin architecture.

A little while ago, a colleague of mine told me about a problem he had to solve. A customer asked him to develop a desktop application that presents a different set of features in accordance to which of the enterprise offices is running the software. On the one hand, I remembered how to do that from a past project where I was involved. On the other hand, there is an open source project for creating WPF applications with a modern look & feel, which I am following since a couple of years because I think it's really great.

I wondered if there is a way to solve the problem by using Prism and the open source MUI library for creating a plugin architecture, and came up with a prototype solution which I am presenting here.

The central ideas for the proposed plugin architecture are:

• Put into a directory the desired project modules (or put them all and run a filter on loading time).
• Dynamically load the project modules from the modules folder.
• Each module exposes an entry point for an option in the main menu.
• Dynamically build the main menu from the loaded modules.
• The first option in the main menu is fixed and common for every user.
• A core module with shared services, repositories, DTOs, data model definitions, etc., is statically loaded. It can be referenced by any solution project.

Dynamic Modules are copied to a directory as part of a post-build step. These modules are not referenced in the startup project and are discovered by examining the assemblies in a directory. The module projects have the following post-build step in order to copy themselves into that directory:

xcopy "$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName)" "$(TargetDir)<strong>modules</strong>" /y

Note that the solution is built into "..\bin" folder.

<strong>WARNING! Do not forget to build the solution (F6) before each running so the modules are copied into the modules folder.</strong>

Links of interest

You may find complementary information at:

• Dynamic Modules with Prism and the Modern UI for WPF Toolkit
• Modern UI for WPF (MUI) Demo project
• Modern UI for WPF Templates (Visual Studio Extension)
• Prism Samples WPF / Modularity With Unity
• On Prism's ViewModelLocator convention*

*Currently there is no need to "implement" the IView interface in the view's code-behind.

Contributors

• hinojosachapel