NetModules 1.3.0

NetModules

In a one-liner, the aim of the NetModules project is to make developing customizable applications as simple as possible with all the hard work done by the NetModules architecture.

This project is open source so please feel free to contribute suggestions, make modifications and pull requests back to the repository.

What and why is NetModules?

NetModules is an MIT license .NET 6 C# Class Library that offers an open-source system for creating event-driven, modular and plugin-based applications.

This project was started as a simple example project that demonstrated an implementation of Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF). A framework included in Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and is also available as an external component at codeplex for older versions of .NET Framework.

It was to demonstrate the architecture and benifits of a strict modular design pattern for developing complex applications.

Although the project was initially built with MEF, not many features of MEF were used. MEF was mostly used to load each module at runtime and inject the IModuleHost into the Host property of each Module. Since porting the project to .NET Core, and later to .NET 6, removing MEF references in favor of Reflection was required due to lack of support. (THIS PROJECT NO LONGER DEPENDS ON MICROSOFT EXTENSIBILITY FRAMEWORK).

The project has since grown into an advanced framework designed to simplify the development of cross-platform applications using a modular or plugin-based design pattern. It is compatible with .NET 6 and platforms that support .NET 6 class libraries. I have used this framework and the modular design pattern in many commercial projects and have always found that the architecture very welcomed by both clients and other developers I've worked on projects with.

• NetModules is a simple, clean and compact .NET 6 class library for creating plugin-based, modular and customizable layered applications.

How do I get set up?

Take a look at the NetModules.ChatModule project in the source code. The ChatModule demonstrates the implementation of a Module in the form of a 1980s style chatbot. This module demonstrates how to handle a NetModules.ChatModule.Events.ChatModuleEvent and the event demonstrates how to implement the IEvent interface.

The NetModules.ChatModule and NetModules.ChatModule.Events class libraries are referenced in the demo project located at NetModules.TestApplication, that is a console application. If you run this application without any modification, and provided you have the .NET 6 SDK runtime libraries installed, a console window will be displayed in that you can chat with the ChatBot module by entering text and pressing the return key.

The NetModules.TestApplication contains a BasicModuleHost class that inherits from NetModules.ModuleHost. This class implements the NetModules.Interfaces.IModuleHost interface. The ModuleHost class and implemented interfaces are used for loading modules and invoking the handling of events. There are no other dependency requirements in this project to keep it as simple as possible.

The layout of the projects within the NetModules directory and solution is to demonstrate the design pattern of keeping modules and corresponding events is seperate class libraries, and referencing the module class libraries from within an application that depends on them, and the events class libraries can be referenced by modules that may depend on an event.

The core project and examples are fairly well documented and if you get stuck or have any questions, please contact me and I'll be glad to help out.

For further documentation please see the repository wiki. Coming soon...

Contribution guidelines

• Fork NetModules, make some changes, make a pull request. Simple!
• Code will be reviewed when a pull request is made.

Who do I talk to?

• NetModules repo owner via message or the issues board.

License

• The MIT License (MIT) - You are free to use NetModules in personal and commercial projects, and modify/redistribute the source code provided the copyright notice is not removed.
• If you use NetModules in your own project I would love to hear about it, so drop me a line (and even a credit to NetModules in your project if you feel generous). I would be very happy to hear about your experiences using the NetModules class library and framework in your projects, and any suggestions you may have for me to make it better.