Fong Plugin Engine

Updated Wiki: Home

drummerboy0511 — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:11:04 GMT

Fong Plugin Engine

The Fong Plugin Engine is an easy way to be able to extend your .NET applications. It was written in VB.NET, but plugins can theoretically be written in VB.NET and C#, and the engine itself can be incorporated into those same languages (and probably F#).

Version 1.2 (1/21/2013)

Added Config(), which could be run when a program needs to access the plugin's config page.
Added an AppName property, which is used to help the host app determine whether or not a plugin should be used in the app.
Added more comments in the code to make it easier to understand.
Everything's all in one zip file now!

Version 1.1 (5/21/2012)

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.
All binaries were put into one .zip file.
Some documentation is now available under the "Documentation" tab.

Version 1.0 (4/11/2012)

Fully functional plugin engine
Plugin template for VB.NET
Test application (Written in VB.NET)

Planned for Version 2.0:

Mono port
C# Plugin template

Required to use Fong Plugin Engine:

Visual Studio 2008 (Any edition, including Express)
.NET Framework 3.5

Help Wanted!
I would really appreciate some help on this project. Here are some things that need to be done:

Create a C# plugin template based off of the VB.NET version
Port the plugin engine and template to Mono
Create an F# plugin template
Write documentation

It would also be helpful if you were able to report bugs and write reviews of this project. This would help us to write better software and to encourage more people to use it.

Main Developer:

Josh Fongheiser

Project Description
This is a basic plugin engine that was written in Visual Basic.NET. It can be placed in applications so that they can easily be extended.

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.2 (Jan 21, 2013)

drummerboy0511 — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:10:18 GMT

In this update:

Added Config(), which could be run when a program needs to access the plugin's config page.
Added an AppName property, which is used to help the host app determine whether or not a plugin should be used in the app.
Added more comments in the code to make it easier to understand.
Everything's all in one zip file now!

Released: Fong Plugin Engine 1.2 (一月 21, 2013)

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:10:18 GMT

In this update:

Added Config(), which could be run when a program needs to access the plugin's config page.
Added an AppName property, which is used to help the host app determine whether or not a plugin should be used in the app.
Added more comments in the code to make it easier to understand.
Everything's all in one zip file now!

Updated Wiki: Home

drummerboy0511 — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:48:47 GMT

Fong Plugin Engine

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.
All binaries were put into one .zip file.
Some documentation is now available under the "Documentation" tab.

Version 1.0 (4/11/2012)

Fully functional plugin engine
Plugin template for VB.NET
Test application (Written in VB.NET)

Planned for Version 2.0:

Mono port
C# Plugin template

Required to use Fong Plugin Engine:

Visual Studio 2008 (Any edition, including Express)
.NET Framework 3.5

Help Wanted!
I would really appreciate some help on this project. Here are some things that need to be done:

Create a C# plugin template based off of the VB.NET version
Port the plugin engine and template to Mono
Create an F# plugin template
Write documentation

It would also be helpful if you were able to report bugs and write reviews of this project. This would help us to write better software and to encourage more people to use it.

Main Developer:

Josh Fongheiser

Project Description
This is a basic plugin engine that was written in Visual Basic.NET. It can be placed in applications so that they can easily be extended.

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1 (May 21, 2012)

drummerboy0511 — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:47:21 GMT

Changes made in this version:

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.
All binaries were put into one .zip file.

Released: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1 (May 21, 2012)

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:47:21 GMT

Changes made in this version:

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.
All binaries were put into one .zip file.

Updated Wiki: Documentation

drummerboy0511 — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:33:33 GMT

Here is the documentation that I currently have available for you:

Getting Started

God willing, there is more documentation to come; please bear with me. I have several other projects on my plate in addition to this one.

If you would like to contribute to this project and/or its documentation, feel free to contact me on my profile, or visit the People tab of this project.

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1

drummerboy0511 — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:27:32 GMT

Changes made in this version:

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.
All binaries were put into one .zip file.

Updated Wiki: Getting Started

drummerboy0511 — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:25:17 GMT

To make your own plugin using the template included on the Downloads page, there are several (simple) steps that must be taken for everything to work properly.

First, download the VSI and open it. Click through the wizard so that it installs the template into Visual Studio.

Secondly, open Visual Studio and create a new project. Under your installed templates for Visual Basic, you should see a project that is called "Fong Plugin Template." Open that.

Upon creating your new project, you will encounter several error messages in your Error List. This can be fixed by making a couple of small changes to your project. First, add a new reference to the Fong Plugin Engine binary (dll) to your project. This will remove all but two of your errors.

The remaining two errors can be removed by double-clicking the error in your Error List, and removing the text in the red box in the image below:

Now, you should be all set to create your plugin!

Updated Wiki: Getting Started

drummerboy0511 — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:24:40 GMT

Updated Wiki: Getting Started

drummerboy0511 — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:24:16 GMT

Updated Wiki: Getting Started

drummerboy0511 — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:00:40 GMT

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1

drummerboy0511 — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:42:57 GMT

-Complete VB.NET Code File
-Complete Binary Package
-VB.NET Template File

Changes made in this version:

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.
All binaries were put into one .zip file.

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1

drummerboy0511 — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:42:42 GMT

-Complete VB.NET Code File
-Complete Binary Package
-VB.NET Template File

Changes made in this version:

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.
All binaries were put into one .zip file.

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1

drummerboy0511 — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:22:48 GMT

-Complete VB.NET Code File
-Complete Binary Package
-VB.NET Template File

Changes made in this version:

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.
All source code was put into one .zip file.

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1

drummerboy0511 — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:17:16 GMT

-Complete VB.NET Code File
-Complete Binary Package
-VB.NET Template File

Changes made in this version:

Install sub added to plugin engine; this would allow the host application to run a certain action as it installs the plugin.

Created Release: Fong Plugin Engine 1.1

drummerboy0511 — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:15:17 GMT

-Complete VB.NET Code File

Updated Wiki: Home

drummerboy0511 — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:14:35 GMT

Fong Plugin Engine

Fully functional plugin engine
Plugin template for VB.NET
Test application (Written in VB.NET)

Planned for Version 2.0:

Mono port
C# Plugin template

Required to use Fong Plugin Engine:

Visual Studio 2008 (Any edition, including Express)
.NET Framework 3.5

Help Wanted!
I would really appreciate some help on this project. Here are some things that need to be done:

Create a C# plugin template based off of the VB.NET version
Port the plugin engine and template to Mono
Create an F# plugin template
Write documentation

It would also be helpful if you were able to report bugs and write reviews of this project. This would help us to write better software and to encourage more people to use it.

Main Developer:

Josh Fongheiser

Project Description
This is a basic plugin engine that was written in Visual Basic.NET. It can be placed in applications so that they can easily be extended.

Updated Wiki: Home

drummerboy0511 — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:02:54 GMT

Fong Plugin Engine

Fully functional plugin engine
Plugin template for VB.NET
Test application (Written in VB.NET)

Planned for next version:

Mono port
C# Plugin template

Required to use Fong Plugin Engine:

Visual Studio 2008 (Any edition, including Express)
.NET Framework 3.5

Help Wanted!
I would really appreciate some help on this project. Here are some things that need to be done:

Create a C# plugin template based off of the VB.NET version
Port the plugin engine and template to Mono
Create an F# plugin template
Write documentation

It would also be helpful if you were able to report bugs and write reviews of this project. This would help us to write better software and to encourage more people to use it.

Main Developer:

Josh Fongheiser

Project Description
This is a basic plugin engine that was written in Visual Basic.NET. It can be placed in applications so that they can easily be extended.

Updated Release: Fong Plugin Engine v.1.0 (Apr 11, 2012)

drummerboy0511 — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 03:00:25 GMT

This release includes the binaries and code for the plugin engine and a sample app that shows how to recognize plugins. There is also a template that can be installed into Visual Studio so you can create your own plugins.