[MonoDevelop] ANNOUNCE: Mono.Addins 0.1

[Charlie Poole]

Hi Lluis,

> I'm pleased to announce the release of Mono.Addins.
> 
> Mono.Addins is a generic framework for creating extensible 
> applications, and for creating libraries which extend those 
> applications.
> 
> Mono.Addins has been designed to be easy to use and useful 
> for a wide range of applications: from simple applications 
> with small extensibility needs, to complex applications which 
> need support for large add-in structures.
> 
> This new framework intends to set an standard for building 
> extensible applications and add-ins in Mono. I've created a 
> mailing list I encourage you to subscribe if you have 
> suggestions or questions about the library:
> http://groups.google.com/group/mono-addins 

Great, you're just in time for me to use it!

FYI, NUnit 2.4 has a somewhat adhoc approach to addins that I planned to
replace with a complete add-in-based design in 3.0. I was going to look at
the SD/MD addin structure and work from that, but it makes more sense to
have a separate addin framework that will have wider use and contribution...


> 
> The main features of Mono.Addins are:
> 
>       * Supports descriptions of add-ins using custom attributes (for
>         simple and common extensions) or using an xml 
> manifest (for more
>         complex extensibility needs). 

This is especially good for me. I can see some people writing adhoc add-ins
that are right in their test assemblies, while others will want to create
truly separate add-ins.

>       * Support for add-in hierarchies, where add-ins may depend on
>         other add-ins. 
>       * Lazy loading of add-ins. 
>       * Provides an API for accessing to add-in descriptions, 
> which will
>         allow building development and documentation tools 
> for handling
>         add-ins. 
>       * Dynamic activation / deactivation of add-ins at run time. 
>       * Allows sharing add-in registries between applications, and
>         defining arbitrary add-in locations. 
>       * Allows implementing extensible libraries. 
>       * In addition to the basic add-in engine, it provides a Setup
>         library to be used by applications which want to offer basic
>         add-in management features to users, such as 
> enabling/disabling
>         add-ins, or installing add-ins from on-line repositories.

Qs:
  Is this MIT-licensed?
  Is it intended to work on .Net as well as Mono?

Charlie

> If you are interested in knowing more about Mono.Addins, this 
> document explains the library basics and some examples:
> http://www.mono-project.com/Introduction_to_Mono.Addins.
> 
> If you are *really* interested and want to know in detail 
> everything about Mono.Addins, see: 
> http://www.mono-project.com/Mono.Addins.
> 
> You can download a tarball from:
> http://www.go-mono.com/sources/mono-addins/mono-addins-0.1.tar.gz
> 
> Latest from SVN at:
> svn://svn.myrealbox.com/source/trunk/mono-addins
> 
> Enjoy!
> Lluis.
> 
> 
> 
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