Referenced dlls?

My plugin requires a referenced dll. It’s working fine within the Hoster application (I have the required dll referenced in my project) but for some reason the functionality requiring the dll does not work when I try to load the plugin my v4p file. Other functions work, such as drawing onto the background.

I started with the GUI template and everything else is working fine, is there some sort of special setup I need? Do I need to package the dll in a special place?

  • where do you place the .dll?
  • how do you reference the .dll? can you give us the code here?
  • is it a .net .dll?
  • I’ve had the .dll in many different folders. c:\vvvv\bin, c:\vvvv, c:\vvvv\plugin, my plugin directory, my plugin directories bin directory. It seems like I don’t actually need to have the .dll in my plugin directories bin directory for it to work though.

  • I reference the .dll inside my project in SharpDevelop. I expanded the project and right clicked on references > add reference, and selected the .dll from the “GAC” tab. The .dll in question is Phidget21.NET.dll, and it’s used for interfacing with these boards: http://www.phidgets.com/

I could upload the code, but I don’t think it would be testable without a phidgets board.

  • It does seem to be a .net.dll

hmm…strange. if it is in the GAC the idea, as i understand it, would be that it is available globally and the .dll does not have to be placed in any of your mentioned directories. actually someone/something (the installer of phidget?!) must have installed it in the GAC (which also refers to a logical directory somewhere in C:\Windows\System…i believe).

so…if it doesn’t work in vvvv i have actually no idea why…can you do some debugging? would you get an errormessage at the codeline where you call into the phidget.dll?

I just got it working- it was a stupid mistake and not a .dll issue, sorry for the confusion.

While debugging I moved a copy of my compiled plugin .dll file to the c:\vvvv\plugins folder. It seems like vvvv ALWAYS favors the .dll there, even though I was dragging the newly compiled .dll into the vvvv window for testing. I guess I know why I should use the .v4p file in the plugin template now (which I’m assuming references the .dll in the bin directory, and not the vvvv plugin directory).

Either way, thanks for the help!

good point though. i’ve been confused by this behavior too. definitely needs a fix.