Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Phillip Michael Hoff

Lubomir I Birov

Daniel A Molina

Shi Sun

Li Ma

Anthony Crider

John A Cunningham

Sung Hon Wu

David Andrew Whitechapel

Vladimir Yuryevich Morozov

Reza Chitsaz

Lily Ma

Steve C Fox

Anthony Lavel Crider

Techniques are described herein that are capable of dynamically installing plugin(s) for application(s). An agent plugin is caused to run in a deployment of a specified application (e.g., across multiple machines in a cloud environment or 'on premises'). The specified application is packaged to include the agent plugin. The agent plugin is used to install designated plugin(s) dynamically based on configuration information regarding the specified application. The configuration information indicates that the designated plugin(s) are to be installed in response to the specified application being deployed.

Dynamic plugin(s) for cloud application(s)

Solution packages for a product for deployment on a collection of servers can be designed using one or more designers that provide user interfaces for visually arranging and configuring elements of the product. A package object model includes a managed object model that represents a package or feature manifest as defined by a product manifest XML schema. The object model can be used to create references to other project item and feature definitions. The extended object model can be used to generate an equivalent package or feature manifest XML file.

Package design and generation

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to designer extensibility. In aspects, a designer package is registered. The designer package includes a component that is able to search for designers that support a given file. After finding one or more designers that support a file, the component creates a control that includes the one or more designers. The component may also include in the control an editor usable to view a text-based representation of the file. After creating the control, the component may return a reference to the control that may be used to host the control. The mechanism also supports finding and creating controls that are not based on files.

Designer extensibility

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to integrating software components. In aspects, a previously created component is inserted into a target project. To do this, a location of elements of the component is obtained as well as a destination for placing the elements. Fixup code is also inserted into the project. The fixup code is to be executed after installing the component on a target entity prior to allowing the component to execute. The fixup code discovers the installation location of the component on the target entity and changes reference(s) from the original location to the installation location. After the component and the fixup code are inserted into the project, the project may be used to create a package which may be deployed on one or more target entities.

Integrating software components

When objects are called by a program written in a strongly-typed language using an interface written in a loosely-typed manner, incompatibilities between the programming languages can cause problems. Extension methods can simplify the interface between objects in an object model and a program written in a strongly-typed programming language by providing method overloads that accept strongly-typed parameters. Extension methods are provided that use method overloads that accept strongly-typed parameters, improving type safety by allowing the compiler to enforce type safety rather than relying on type checking at runtime. Nullable types and object initialization may be used to provide strongly-typed optional parameters. Extension methods can be used to support parameterized properties and to support class indexers, enabling query of collections of in-memory objects.

Using extension methods to extend COM objects

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Duvall, WA, United States of America

Phillip Michael Hoff