Skip to main content

ProjectAggregator

The ProjectAggregator is a dll that is required in order to use Packages developed with Visual Studio's 2005 Extensibility SDK.

The projectaggregator.dll must be dropped into the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE directory, if it doesn't exist then the end user will not be able to open projects in Visual Studio 2005 that are associated with your Package.

Microsoft provide an installer ProjectAggregator.msi which does this work for you.

The problem with this is you either tell all your clients to run the projectaggregator.msi themselves after or before installing your Package or else you include the installation of it in your own installer.

The second option is of course the right one, as who would expect customers to run more than one installer. To include this in your installer however you need to create what is known as a BootStrapper project. The Bootstrapper is another installer that wraps the installer you actually wish to run. The idea is you include the Prequisites in the BootStrapper, they get installed first and then the main installer runs.
The Bootstrapper is created in the form of a setup.exe and has it's own installation dialogs. My recommendation is to use this as infrequently as possible. The scenario to include them in your projects is fraught with danger. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

dotNET - Debugging

Debugging with .NET MSIL assemblies Visual Studio and debugging the CLR are different, I'll talk about both. MSIL Assemblies Assemblies compiled with .NET tools such as the CLR compiler are compiled into a file which contains MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language). At runtime the contents of the assembly are loaded into the CLR and ran as machine code. When you compile an assembly in debug a PDB file is generated alongside the DLL or EXE you've just created. The link between these 2 files is that the PDB contains the line numbers of the methods and classes as well as the file names of the original source code that created the assembly. When you launch the debugger in Visual Studio the assembly is loaded into the Debugger (similar to the CLR) along with the PDB file. The debugger now uses your PDB file contents to match the running code found in the assembly to locations in source files (hopefully in your present project). CLR CLR Inside Out (msdn magazine) .NET Framework Tools:...

Installer CustomAction, Debugging the CustomAction, InstallState

Custom Action The Custom Action is added to the Setup Project, select the Project node and hit the Custom Action button. This allows you add an Action to a particular phase in the Installation. But first you must create the Custom Action. To Add a Custom Action you must first have a Custom Action created, this is usually in the form of a Installer Class, this should be created in a seperate project, the Installer Class is actually one of the File Templates in the C# Projects. So it's File->New Project and select Visual C# Projects. Then add a Class Library, this will prompt you for the Class Library Types , select "Installer Class". Walkthrough - Creating Custom Action (msdn). Also here's a more comprehensive document on Setup/Installer implementations, it delves into the Registry etc Getting Started with Setup Projects (SimpleTalk). Visual Studio Setup Projects and Custom Actions (Simple Talk). Create your Installer Class and then add it as a Custom Action to the ...

Real-time Web Applications

Your application wants to show live data i.e. data sent from Server back up to the Client instead of the usual which is the Client sending data to the Server via a form submit. There are multiple options, currently the best option is WebSockets. Polling Periodically check the Server for updated data, uses SetInterval in Javascript. The Client sends some information to the Server and wants the Server to send back a response, the response is not immediate so the Client wants to wait for the Server but instead of waiting the Client keeps sending requests to the Server and when something is updated on the Server then the Client updates the UI. ( function poll (){ setTimeout ( function (){ $ . ajax ({ url : "server" , success : function ( data ){ //Update your dashboard gauge salesGauge . setValue ( data . value ); //Setup the next poll recursively poll (); }, dataType : "json" }); }, 30000 ); })(); https://...