Monday, February 11, 2019
Adding Assembly References and Keeping Them
Apps created with Code On Time are based on Microsoft.NET. You can take advantage of system and 3rd party libraries to extend your application.

Let's say you want to access some of the Microsoft Active Directory features available through System.DirectoryServices assembly. Select your app on the start page of the app generator and choose Visual Studio. Right-click the app node and choose Add|References option in the context menu. Choose required assemblies and press OK.

Adding an assembly reference to the app.


If your project was created with the framework packaged in a class library, then make sure to save the solution to preserve the reference. The reference will be stored in the project file of the app.

If the framework is included directly into the app and you have ~/App_Code folder, then the reference will be stored in ~/web.config file. App generator recreates this configuration file from scratch when the app is rebuild.

First, open web.config in Visual Studio and locate the new assembly references.

Custom assembly references in the app with a self-contained application framework.

Copy the definition of assembly reference to the clipboard and switch to the app generator.

Select the project name, choose Settings and proceed to Client & Server.  Locate Web.config modification instructions  in the Server section and enter the following:

AppendChild: /configuration/system.web/compilation/assemblies

Press Enter twice and paste the contents of the clipboard. You will end up having something like this:


Press Finish  and from now on the custom assembly references will be reproduced every time the project is generated.