A DLL with WinForms that can be launched from A main app

Question

Hi all. I have created a C# DLL that has some forms in it. ( I needed it to be a DLL, not a Windows Application.) How can I run it as a Windows App? Should I create another app and load it? How? What do I need to learn to do that? please let me know if I should explain more about my question.

Answer 1

You can add forms to your DLL, then make a public static function in the DLL that calls Application.Run with a form.

You can then call this public static method from a C# Application project (after adding a reference to the DLL).

Answer 2

You can launch it with RunDll32 however you may need to tweek the dll a bit before it will work. You may need to put a Application.Run in the entry point. this way you do not need to compile another entire application to use it.

the below code is untested but I think it should work.

public static void myDllEntryPoint()
{
     Application.run(new MyFormInDll());   
}

Run your application as

rundll32.exe myDll.dll,myDllEntryPoint

Answer 3

If you're using VS 2008:

First, create a Windows Forms Application project. You can delete the default form that's created (Form1.cs) if you don't plan to use it.

In the Solution Explorer, right-click on the References and select Add Reference. This is the point where you add your custom designed C# DLL.

Now open Program.cs, and in make the following change:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using ****your DLL namespace here****
namespace WindowsFormsApplication2
{
    static class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new [****your startup form (from the DLL) here****]);
        }
    }
}

If the DLL contains disconnected forms, you'll probably need to add a class in the winforms project to coordinate the forms behavior.