Dynamically extending features of an application?

Question

I recently came across a way to develop pluggable application modules when using ASP.NET MVC3/4 and I loved the simplicity of the approach. Currently, I have my applications

Answer 1

What you're doing looks very much alike the MVCContrib's Portable Areas.

They use the message/application bus pattern to dynamically add new widgets on web elements. MessageHandlers are discovered via reflection and each message is passed to all of them. So in your case the plugin author should just implement a handler for a standard message(say register global menu link).

Resources of the Portable Areas are embedded so just a single dll could be dropped in the bin folder. In order to automatically pick it up and use it in your app you will have to watch the bin folder say via FileSystemWatcher and restart your app(there is no other way to load the new .dll into the AppDomain in asp.net application I think).

You may load .dlls from other folders as well by using BuildManager functionality in ASP.NET 4. More useful info on that here.