GUI extension DLL in its own folder (not bin)

Question

I've developed a GUI extension (I'm using Tridion Web 8). Now, I'd like to isolate the DLLs as much as possible to avoid loose anything in a future upgrade.

Is there anyway to put all the DLLs and files related to my GUI extension in a folder and reference them instead of putting them all in the Drive: [Tridion Folder]\web\WebUI\WebRoot\bin folder?

I already tried to create a virtual folder in IIS, put everything in there and in the configuration use:

<vdir>MyExtension</vdir>

But didn't work.

Answer 1

I haven't tried it myself, but I suppose that including the dll in the GAC would be enough for the extension to work.

Looking for information about loading dll's out of the bin folder, it must work the following solution: Create an App.config file for the extension (inside the Configuration folder) and include a reference to the dll with the following element:

<configuration>
   <runtime>
      <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
         <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity name="MyAssembly2"  culture="neutral" publicKeyToken="307041694a995978"/>
            <codeBase version="1.0.1524.23149" href="FILE://C:/Myassemblies/MyAssembly2.dll"/>
         </dependentAssembly>
      </assemblyBinding>
   </runtime>
</configuration>

Changing the values of name, publicKeyToken, version and href with your own values.

Answer 2

I think you should try to build Alchemy plugin, I have build couple of plugins and everything is managed by alchemy app