Smart Client - Composite UI Application Block

From the news here, I downloaded the December release of the Composite UI Application Block, and I’m really enjoying seeing it come together. Craig and I watched ages ago the June webcast about CAB, and were both impressed as it was the solution to the problem we had been discussing for a few weeks.

I compiled and ran half the quick starts, then did the dishes, and had a good think about what I’d just seen. With the dishes done and questions in mind I jumped back into it. What do you know, the EventBroker example answered my major question.

So the software we have at work doesn’t need to use the CAB, but there’s talk of “Lite” versions or optional extensions, and it all makes for bolt-on / plug-in type system (the shell) with inter component communication (events via the broker).

One of the questions still in my mind is mixing the CAB with Click-Once. I read Peter’s article on “Using the CAB Bank Teller Quick Start With Partial Trust ClickOnce Deployments” which talks about statically “bonding” the modules to the main shell application.

What I’m wondering is can you use Click-once for the Shell and have it load via the click-once mechanism the required sub-modules. With support for them been managed via the install/uninstall process. This way you can update a single module and have the app pull it down and use that, but not hard code the app to know where to look, just know where it “comes” from.

So this is an area I’m keen to learn more about. So will hopefully at sound point report back about the if’s and how’s of this question.