Hi,
Will the GIS Editor eventually support custom plugins in a compiled form ?
E.g. DLLs placed in a special folder or registered with the plugin manager.
Cheers.
Support for compiled plugins?
Lars,
Here is a rehash of a previous post I answered a few minutes ago. Oh also to add to all this is that we also support internationalization to all of this as well.
The entire GIS Editor sits on top of a well designed plugin system. Every piece of functionality is actually a MEF loaded plugin. We have different types of plugins such as LayerPlugins, UIPlugins, StylePlugins, and many more. Also underpinning the plugin system is a manager system which are heavy lifting singletons of the GIS Editor framework that are MEF replaceable as well. Below is a link to a hidden page on our wiki that will house all of the developer API information in it. While we haven’t posted them yet we have lots of plugin samples that do all kinds of things.
We wanted to get the GIS Editor out to get feedback and while we were in beta we will be releasing lots of developer focused videos, sample, and guides. I made sure that they system was extremely extensible and used things like XML for transparency. Like I said every piece of functionality is plugin and in fact you could using a MEF plugin replace the MEF loading system for the plugins. Another very cool feature is the ability to embed the editor window into another app. The editor area is actually a user control that go on a form so you can reference the exe and embed the user control directly. This gives you allot of control over things though at this point it is undocumented but more information is on the way.
Early next week I should have a video showing how to write a simple plugin that can get you up and running. It will be rough however I think you will get the idea. There are some special things you need to setup in your plugin project to be able to debug against the released editor. Another thing to note is that when you start developing plugins you might want to switch to the developer branch in the Options / Update / Update Channel. In this way you will get the daily build version of the GIS Editor delivered to you. We are currently working with different customers already building plugins so sometimes we need to make changes to meet certain scenarios. The architecture and extensible potential is my favorite part of the GIS Editor and very soon you will be able to explore it fully.
wiki.thinkgeo.com/wiki/Map_Suite_GIS_Editor
David
Hi David,
Ok, I've not encountered "MEF plugins" previously, but will have a closer look.
I assume that one can use any .Net language for this development, e.g. VB.net ?
I look forward to seeing your video magic
Lars,
MEF is built into the .Net 4.0 Framework and the way we are using it does not requires the plugin developer to know anything about the technology. I hope to have a overview video out today or tomorrow with some more detailed ones coming later this week.
David
Lars,
Here are some videos and a set of sample plugins. I haven’t added them to the wiki yet but you can check them out. One video goes over each plugin and another video covers things at a high level. I plan to have specific video on how to build each type of plugin in detail. These videos are a bit broad but you can get an idea of how it works.
download.thinkgeo.com/Webinars/GISEditorAPIOverview.wmv
download.thinkgeo.com/Webinars/BuildingPlugins.wmv
download.thinkgeo.com/Webinars/GisEditorPluginsSample.zip
David