Summary

This chapter showed the steps that are involved in extending Enterprise Library by creating an entirely new application block and adding it to the design-time experience that is supported by the Enterprise Library Configuration Tool. In previous chapters, I showed how to extend Enterprise Library to fit in different enterprise environments by creating custom providers. This chapter demonstrated that the extensibility features of Enterprise Library are not limited to creating providers; Enterprise Library can be extended in many ways, up to and including the creation of entirely new application blocks.

The chapter began by describing the primary tasks that are involved with creating a new application block and discussed how some thought needs to be given to what the core functionality of the block is and what should be designed for extensibility through the use of custom providers. It provided some details about the benefits that providers bring to an application block and how they should be designed to easily plug into an application block.

It also described software factories and how they are used in all the application blocks to aid in decoupling the core functionality provided by an application block from the implementation of any single provider, and discussed how some of the capabilities needed by the runtime and design-time configuration for an application block may differ from those that were needed for custom providers. The chapter reviewed some of the recommended accompaniments for an application block, namely unit tests, Quick Starts, and reference documentation and guidance. This chapter has presented a complete picture for how the benefits from Enterprise Library can be gained even if it is missing an application block that might be important to your organization.