Extensions for a ASP.NET MVC 3 Application?

Question

I need to write an extensible ASP.NET MVC 3 application, while an extension is a .dll with a very specific purpose (i.e: a forum extension, a blog extension, a wiki extension, etc).

An extension wouldn't have any views though, which should make this process much simpler. It should only has controllers and a few models.

I've been thinking about implementing this with MVC areas, and load them like so:

// Global.asax

public static void PreApplicationStartMethod()
{
    foreach (var file in Directory.GetFiles(
        Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "Extensions/"), "*.dll"))
    {
        BuildManager.AddReferencedAssembly(Assembly.LoadFile(file));
    }
}

protected void Application_Start()
{       
    AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
    ...
}

Now this worked perfectly, but still, it seems like a pretty old and static way... .NET 4 has Managed Extensibility Framework. MVC 3 has Dependency Injection.

I've read about Portable Areas and SharpArchitecture. I was trying to understand the Orchard plugin framework both from the source code and the documentation. But still I'm not sure what should I use.

To make my question more practical - how would you include Controllers and Models from an external project to the main MVC web application? What is the best way to do this? Should I use Dependency Injection here?

Thanks.

someone recently told me that link only answers are frowned upon in this community. somehow, I find that contradictory enough. — user900360
– user900360, Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 10:32

Matthew Abbott · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-17 21:06:58Z

1

I've had a look at this previously, let me know if these help:

answered Mar 17, 2011 at 21:06

Matthew Abbott

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