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+++ title = "#1 Plugin-Based Web App in Dotnet - The Idea" date = "2024-01-20T00:00:00+00:00" author = "the1mason" authorTwitter = "the0mason" #do not include @ cover = "posts/modular-app/title.svg" tags = ["dotnet", "web", "prototype"] keywords = ["prototype", "dotnet", "guide", "plugins", "plugin-based", "web application", "ASP.NET", "C#", ".NET 8", "Programming", "Software Architecture"] description = "Have you ever thought about making a web application, that could be easily extended by third-party developers? I've been thinking about making this app for a while, so here's my experience..." showFullContent = false readingTime = true hideComments = false draft = false +++

Chapters

Writing those takes time. Expect to see one published per one-two weeks.

  1. Idea, Stack

  2. Loading plugins

  3. PluginBase, IPlugin

  4. Creating plugin, DependencyInjection

  5. Controllers, Views

  6. Hooks and Triggers - better event system

  7. Advanced: Unit tests, unloading plugins

Introduction

Have you ever heard of plugins? These are loadable libraries, extending your application.
This series of articles is an overview of my plugin-based web application prototype and mechanisms behind it's features, as well as my thought process and decision making during development. These articles are a step by step guide to making your own plugin-based web app prototype.

I assume some that readers have some knowledge of C# and design patterns

Problem

Self-hosted web applications can solve different problems and be of use to a variety of different people with slightly different needs. For this to work, I think that such an application should provide an option to extend its functionality. This would allow other people to build an ecosystem of different extensions around it. For example, a shopping website might have plugins for different payment systems, or a comment section under the product page. For me this also means, that instead of making one feature-rich website, that would be so specific to my needs, that it wouldn't of any use to anyone but me, I can write a bunch of smaller modules, that could be used by someone, without having to configure other modules.

Choosing my stack

C#, MVC, HTMX

C#

I'm a dotnet developer and I write C# code for living. This project is as much of an excersise for me as it is an interesting design prototype for C#, that hasn't been described in detail as much online.

I haven't seen such plugin-based sites written in C#. There are some projects, using plugin based architecture... Well, there's even a Microsoft Learn Article about building such an app!

Q: Why would I even bother to write all these posts and making prototypes? Even more: Why would someone be interested in such post?

A: You see... there's a problem: Neither learn.microsoft.com nor any other webside covers dynamically updating web interface with plugins! If you want to learn about it, it's the right place. Also just loading libraries isn't enough because app also has to provide some ways for plugins to interact with it, which is also covered here!

MVC with HTMX

ASP.NET MVC is a web framework, that incorporates the MVC design pattern and uses SSR (Server Side Rendering) to serve content. It is a perfect fit for the HTMX library. This is a compact JavaScript library that extends basic HTML by adding some custom attributes just enough to build your app around it. You can distribute events, make AJAX requests and build truly dynamic app by using as little JS as possible.


HTMX uses Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS) - it's a principle that leaves all state handling to the server, providing the client only with a set of actions that it can take. Your regular SPA will get raw data from the server (like bank balance) and based on it, it will show or hide certain actions (like we won't show the withdrawal option if balance is 0 or less). With HATEOAS, the server just won't give the link to withdraw money, making this action impossible in the first place.

HTMX would allow this app to be extended more easily as well. Most of the modern JS frameworks require transpiling, bundling and other sorts of stuff. This means that when a plugin is installed the client is most likely will have to be rebuilt. This is slow and needs additional dependencies.

Have you heard about Blazor WASM? You can just write client code in C#!

Blazor WASM does not support dynamic loading for plugins. Because of that, plugins won't be able to extend the client. Also it's initial load time is stupidly slow.

The next article will cover the following topocs: Loading plugins in runtime, creating plugin's instances, app-plugin communication. I'll have the link here when I'm done writing it!