How to create redistributable user control in DLL form with embedded images, javascripts, style sheets?

Question

I've developed a most reusable ASP.Net WebUserControl for our company's web applications. I'm now going to make it as a redistributable DLL according to this msdn topic. Since the WebUserControl comes with some JavaScript(s), CSS(s) as well as images. I'm asking how can I bundle them all together to form a single DLL?

Our development environment is Visual Studio 2008, .Net Framework 3.5

Please kindly advise! Thanks!

William

Answer 1

You could bundle the non source code parts in a resource file and reference them through there in your ASP.NET code. You could add to the default resource file (.resx) or add your own..

Answer 2

I haven't actually tried this but I think you could embed the user controls, JS files, etc into the output assembly of your reusable library project. Basically in the Properties dialog you'd set the "Build Action" to "Embedded Resource" for those files instead of "Content".

Then the consuming application would implement and register a VirtualPathProvider to tell ASP.NET to look for user controls inside the assembly.

Here's a similar question dealing with loading MVC Views from a DLL, same idea: Using VirtualPathProvider to load ASP.NET MVC views from DLLs

And this: http://www.wynia.org/wordpress/2008/12/aspnet-mvc-plugins/