Hi,

i'am stuck on point 5 CC Developer's Guide trying create a plugin. This point says:

Add a new "PluginFiles" line to the \Trunk\ImageViewer\ImageViewer_dist.proj file.  This is an MSBuild file that gets executed as a post-build step and ensures that all necessary binaries, including your plugin, get copied to the right place for execution (i.e., \Trunk\Desktop\Executable\Debug).

How should PluginFiles tag l ook like if i've created empty plugin using template?

Hi Echo,

Step 5 only applies if you are rebuilding the entire viewer source. All it does, is copies your compiled project .dll into the 'plugins' directory for the viewer.
The line looks something like this, where you would change the path to the new library.


This is only meant to make life easier for you if you are building the viewer with a lot of plugins. If you are designing a single plugin and NOT rebuilding the viewer each time, you can either manually copy your project .dll, or, as I like to do, add a post-build step in visual studio (grabbed this tip from someone else on the forum).

I usually test my plugins against a pre-built viewer on my machine, installed in C:\Program Files\ClearCanvas (the default for the installer).
I right click properties on my plugin's properties in VS and add the following post-build event:

copy "$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName)" "C:\Program Files\ClearCanvas\ClearCanvas Workstation\plugins"

After, I build my plugin, it is automatically copied and it runs when I run the workstation.
A few caveats with this approach:
1) Make sure the viewer isn't running when you build
2) You need to build in release mode
3) For some plugins you may need to disable the ShredHostService before copying. Not sure if this is a Vista permissions issue.

Good luck,
Seth

Thank you Seth for explanation and tip!

It is very helpful.