A plugin framework with ASP.NET MVC3 and embedded Razor views

Question

I\'m designing a plugin framework for ASP.NET MVC3 using Razor views, and I\'m having an issue getting the embedded views to work correctly.

The plugin frame

Answer 1

Ok, the solution was found using this article.

First I create a class with a PreApplicationStartMethod. This method scans the plugin folder and copies the dlls to the AppDomain.DynamicDirectory.

Then each of these dll's are loaded using BuildManager.AddReferencedAssembly.

And voilà, the strongly-typed Razor views compile beautifully. See the code here:

[assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(MySolution.PluginHandler.PluginActivator), "Initialize")]
namespace MySolution.PluginHandler
{
    public class PluginActivator
    {
        private static readonly DirectoryInfo PluginFolderInfo;

        static PluginActivator() {
            PluginFolderInfo = new DirectoryInfo(HostingEnvironment.MapPath("~/plugins"));
        }

        public static void Initialize() {
            CopyPluginDlls(PluginFolderInfo, AppDomain.CurrentDomain.DynamicDirectory);
            LoadPluginAssemblies(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.DynamicDirectory);
        }

        private static void CopyPluginDlls(DirectoryInfo sourceFolder, string destinationFolder)
        {
            foreach (var plug in sourceFolder.GetFiles("*.dll", SearchOption.AllDirectories)) {
                if (!File.Exists(Path.Combine(destinationFolder, plug.Name))) {
                    File.Copy(plug.FullName, Path.Combine(destinationFolder, plug.Name), false);
                }
            }
        }

        private static void LoadPluginAssemblies(string dynamicDirectory)
        {
            foreach (var plug in Directory.GetFiles(dynamicDirectory, "*.dll", SearchOption.AllDirectories)) {
                Assembly assembly = Assembly.Load(AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(plug));
                BuildManager.AddReferencedAssembly(assembly);
            }
        }
    }
}

I hope this can help other programmers that want to create a clean plugin framework using these new technologies.