Build never completes when including .NET plugin

[munderhill]

I compiled the .NET plugin projects and included them in a setup project, but when I try to compile the setup it never finishes. See attached to see where it stops. If I remove the .NET step, the project compiles fine.

Screenshot_1.png (41.29 KiB) Viewed 23513 times

[FrancescoT]

Dear Munderhill,

for sure it exist a problem with you plugin code ...and without the code it's quite difficult to say where is the problem.
Other user posted some samples on the dedicated "Plug-In Development" forum.
For example; https://www.installaware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10598&hilit=sample

PLEASE NOTE!
This topic has been moved to the "Plug-In Development" forum.

Regards

[munderhill]

Francesco,

This is YOUR sample code, not mine.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Munderhill,

I missed the fact that you just compiled the "DesignTime C# Plug-In" generated by the IA Plug-in Wizard.

The Visual Studio project created by the wizard ONLY contains the skeleton declarations of the required DLL Export.
For what concerns the generated .Net Bridge Plug-in code, there are some Message-Boxes placed within the exported methods.

These are only intended to notify the developer when an exported "design-time/Runtime-time" FUNCTION gets effectively called.

At any rate, did you have a look at the generated C# code?

The Message-Box you posted gets displayed each time the "CompileTimeBuild" Export Method gets invoked. Such Message-Box is EXCLUSIVELY there FOR TEST PURPOSE and this is used to illustrate which PARAMETERS are involved with the function call.

For more details, please refer to the "Plug-in Authoring guide" included with the IA documentation.

Hope this helps you.

Regards

[munderhill]

Francesco,

Are you saying that the dialogs should be removed in order to compile the project? Do you have an example of a .NET plugin that does allow the setup project to be compiled successfully?

Mike

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mike,

the project gets compiled correctly regardless of the presence on those Message Dialogs. These are just "Message-Boxes" and they may be present with the code if required.

In this specific case, those dialogs are there just for Learning purpose and with the intention, to provide the developers a better understanding on how the various exported plug-in methods interact with the InstallAware IDE.

That said, the Plug-in Wizard only creates the project/files necessary to start the Plug-in development. Then it's the developer that has to write all the necessary code...and this depends on what the plug-in will have to do in reality.

For a working sample, you may refer to the link I posted previously.

Hope this helps you.

Regards