Fry Posted October 21, 2021 Share Posted October 21, 2021 I'm not sure if this would be useful for anyone else but I thought I'd share how I have my post-build event setup in my plug-in project. I find this makes developing plugins for LaunchBox/BigBox more convenient. You can add some post-build event commands to have your plug-in automatically copied and ready for release. My plug-in comes with a: Theme StartupTheme Plugin Plugin media folder It was tedious getting this all together every time I wanted to release it and manually copying the files around whenever I wanted to test it. I included a folder called "LaunchBox" in my solution and I put subfolders for Theme (with files for the theme), StartupTheme (with files for the startup theme), and Plugin (with media files for the plug-in) in there. Then in the post-build script, I copy that folder to the target folder, copy my DLL into the plug-ins folder where it needs to be, copy additional 3rd party DLLs that my plug-in uses into the plug-ins folder where it needs to be, and finally copy the whole folder to my launchbox folder so it is automatically deployed and ready for testing. Once you're happy, you can zip up that LaunchBox folder that's in your debug/release folder and it's all set to go with all your supporting files. In this case, eclipse.dll is my plug-in DLL and WpfAnimatedGif.dll is a dependency for my plug-in. RMDIR "$(TargetDir)LaunchBox\" /Q /S xcopy "$(SolutionDir)Eclipse\LaunchBox\" "$(TargetDir)LaunchBox\" /K /D /H /Y /E xcopy "$(TargetDir)Eclipse.dll" "$(TargetDir)LaunchBox\Plugins" /K /D /H /Y xcopy "$(TargetDir)WpfAnimatedGif.dll" "$(TargetDir)LaunchBox\Plugins" /K /D /H /Y xcopy "$(TargetDir)LaunchBox\" "D:\LaunchBox\" /K /D /H /Y /E Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted October 22, 2021 Share Posted October 22, 2021 This is very handy indeed!! One additional line I use in mine during development/testing is (add it after the last 'copy' line) "D:\LaunchBox\LaunchBox.exe" ..talk about a save on clicks. lol An then if I want to build it without starting LB, I just add "REM " in front of it. This is only because I don't know how to get it [a plugin] to Debug. 😊 (if it's even [really] possible) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fry Posted October 22, 2021 Author Share Posted October 22, 2021 You can readily debug. In visual studio open your solution. Make sure your debug symbols file (.PDB) is in the plug-ins folder with your plugin dll. Click debug > attach to process. Choose LaunchBox or BigBox depending on where your plugin is running. Set a breakpoint in your code. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted October 22, 2021 Share Posted October 22, 2021 28 minutes ago, Fry said: You can readily debug. That works awesome! Thank you!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stigzler Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 (edited) This can speed up your dev cycle: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vsdbgplat.MicrosoftChildProcessDebuggingPowerTool2022 You can find a setup guide here: The Secret Sauce Edited March 11, 2023 by stigzler 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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