Overview of the Sample Application

Overview of the Sample Application

DynamicApp is a Microsoft Windows application with three forms. The primary form, Dashboard, is a dashboard from which you can launch the other features of the application: a registry editing form and a snappy graphics form, as seen in Figure 18-1.

Figure 18-1

Dashboard opens the registry editing form and the snappy graphics form.

What is interesting is the architecture of the application. Each form is in a different application; the dashboard is in the main EXE, while the graphics form and registry editing form are in two separate DLLs. When the dashboard opens, it searches its directory for DLLs and then examines each DLL it finds for Windows forms. It dynamically builds a list of available Windows forms and shows them as buttons on the dashboard. When you click a button on the Dashboard form, the appropriate DLL is loaded dynamically and the form is shown. These actions are performed using some of the new file functions in Visual Basic .NET.