Project Consisting of Multiple Standalone Projects

[dpayne178]

Hi,

I'm in the process of developing a database project which will consist of 3 applications, which can be used on their own. The user may choose to purchase just one of the applications, but when the others are used I'd like to have additional functions enabled.

My question is what is the best method of developing multi-part projects which can be connected together for additional functionality?

Regards,

Daniel

 

[jmcilhinney]

It depends exactly interaction you want amongst the apps. You might use files, the Registry, TCP, etc.

 

[dpayne178]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. One example of the kind of interaction I require is that if the user has our Products Application installed, when using the Orders Application, they can click the products which are part of an order to display further details which would have been inputted using the Products Application.

I'm thinking to have all my applications use one central database. Then running some kind of product authentication in the background each time the user opens one of our applications to see which legitimate apps they have installed. Then from this I can enable/disable features.

Is this a correct way of going about this?

Regards,

Daniel

 

[jmcilhinney]

While theoretically .NET apps should avoid using the Windows Registry, this is an example of when it's is appropriate to use it. Your apps can store specific data in the Registry that can then be read by the other apps so that they know that each other is present, where each other is installed and various other things. For instance, the Orders application can check the Registry to see if the Products application is installed and, if it is, it can enable the functionality that interacts with the other app.

Note that you may well want to bundle some of the functionality into DLLs so it's accessible by all apps. You might install a single instance of a DLL to the GAC so all apps use the one instance.