This is the introduction posts about dynamic client / server localization which describes the problem domain. In one of my current projects, we are building a client / server application that uses windows communication foundation requests and responses and event driven data, which is fired over the distributed event broker. Some of the data is dynamically rendered on the client but needs to be translated into several languages. For information which is already known at compile time localization is really straight forward with WPF. But what about data which is not known at compile time of the client?

.NET bbv.Common, Distributed Event Broker, Localization

The reporting mechanism allows creating a full report of the bootstrapping process. To be able to report the bootstrapping process the process must actually run and a reporter must be present. By default the bootstrapper uses a null reporter which does nothing with the report. But it is also possible to hook in a report generator which creates Visio, Enterprise Architect or … (you name it!) diagrams.

A custom reporter must implement the reporter interface IReporter. The reporter receives an IReportingContext which contains all necessary information about the bootstrapping process. The custom reporter must be passed upon the construction of the DefaultBootstrapper<TExtension>.

.NET bbv.Common, bbvcommon, bootstrapper

Configuration sections

The bootstrapper supports loading of configuration sections through behaviors. The behaviors responsible for loading configuration sections must be applied in the begin section of the run syntax.

ConfigurationSection

To be able to load configuration sections the ConfigurationSectionBehavior must be added in the strategy.

.NET bbv.Common, bbvcommon, bootstrapper

Strategy

The strategy defines the order of execution for extension points and behaviors. The custom strategy must inherit from IStrategy. For convenience, use the provided abstract base class AbstractStrategy{TExtension} which simplifies defining a custom strategy. The strategy could look like the following:

.NET bbv.Common, bbvcommon, bootstrapper

Behaviors

Behaviors allow extending the bootstrapping process in an aspect oriented style. Behaviors gain access to extensions which are participating in the bootstrapper process and can therefore influence them for example by injecting additional runtime information into an extension. Behaviors must implement IBehavior<TExtension>. They automatically gain access to all extensions participating the bootstrapping process. Behaviors are executed before the corresponding extension point is called.

.NET bbv.Common, bbvcommon, bootstrapper

Advanced

The bootstrapper can do more! Let us look into a more complex scenario. Often it is required to collect context information during the bootstrapping process and pass this information to the extension points.

Imagine you are using an inversion of control container which intakes IModule implementations to register dependencies during the bootstrapping process. All IModule implementations need to be passed into the IContainer implementation upon construction. For backward compatibility the bootstrapper must automatically check whether an extension implements IModuleProvider and register the provided modules on the IContainer implementation.

.NET bbv.Common, bbvcommon, bootstrapper

Introduction

To get started with the bootstrapper you need the following three things:

1. Extension interface
2. Strategy
3. Bootstrapper setup

Extension interface

The extension interface defines the extension points which are called by the bootstrapper. The custom extension interface must inherit from IExtension and can only declare methods which return void as extension points. A very basic extension interface could look like the following:

    public interface ICustomExtension : IExtension
    {
        void Start();
        void Stop();
    }

.NET bbv.Common, bbvcommon, bootstrapper

There’s a new kid around the block! The bbv.Common library contains now a generic bootstrapper implementation. The bootstrapper provides a simple and flexible way to make your application’s startup and shutdown behavior pluggable and extendable. As usual the bootstrapper package comes along with high unit test coverage (it has been developed with TDD), executable specifications (MSPECified ) and a sample application. The bootstrapper is focused around the following core features…

.NET bbv.Common, bootstrapper

In my last post I gave an overview about some of the customization possibilities of the distributed event broker. In this post we are going even deeper into some of the customization possibilities the distributed event broker offers. I want to cover the following topics: Custom messages and selection strategies. Furthermore I want to give some details about the current restrictions of the distributed event broker.

.NET bbv.Common, Distributed Event Broker, EventBroker

In my last post I gave an introduction to the nuts and bolts of the distributed event broker. In this post we are going even deeper into some of the customization possibilities the distributed event broker offers. I want to cover the following topics: Scoping, identification and serializers.

.NET bbv.Common, Distributed Event Broker, EventBroker