Add-ins and Extensibility

.NET Framework Developer's Guide

Updated: November 2007

Add-ins provide extended features or services for a host application. The .NET Framework provides a programming model that developers can use to develop add-ins and activate them in their host application. The model achieves this by constructing a communication pipeline between the host and the add-in. The model is implemented by using the types in the System.AddIn, System.AddIn.Hosting, System.AddIn.Pipeline, and System.AddIn.Contract namespaces.

For additional code samples, and customer technology previews of tools for building add-in pipelines, see the Managed Extensibility and Add-In Framework site on CodePlex.

In This Section

Add-in Overview: Describes the add-in programming model for the .NET Framework.
Pipeline Development: Describes the communication pipeline of segments from the host application to the add-in. Provides code examples in walkthrough topics that describe how to construct the pipeline and how to deploy segments to the pipeline in Visual Studio.
Add-in Discovery: Describes how to make add-ins discoverable by host applications.
Add-in Activation: Describes how to activate and deactivate add-ins.
Add-In Performance: Describes how to use domain-neutral assembly loading and native images to improve add-in performance.
How to: Activate Add-ins with Different Isolation and Security Levels: Describes how to activate add-ins in a variety of application domain, process, and security-level scenarios.
How to: Use Qualification Data: Describes how to apply and access custom data attributed to add-ins and pipeline segments.
Add-in Developer Experience: Describes how to develop an add-in to use the required segments of the add-in pipeline.

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