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The biggest news with JustDecompile Q1 2013 is that it’s now the fastest, most accurate .NET decompiler. But that’s not all we did to improve your decompiler experience. The latest release makes it easier than ever to find and load plugins.

Where We Were

We created JustDecompile to support the .NET developer community. Last year, the most popular feature request was the ability to create plugins. So, we added it in the Q2 2012 release of JustDecompile. Since we built JustDecompile using Prism and MEF, loading a plugin was as simple as dropping the plugins in the correct directory. The rapid prototyping and release of this feature had one downside: you actually needed to drop the files in the correct directory.

We were thinking ahead, and we included a plugin ‘manager’. I use scare quotes here because it didn’t actually manage anything. It was more of a plugin list, describing the loaded plugins and providing a link where you could obtain more. We intended it to be temporary all along, a feature to mold into something magnificent to behold (or at least be more useful than a list).

Something happened after the Q2 release: Windows 8. Suddenly, we found ourselves with the need to support WinRT. I regularly receive questions about WinRT regularly, which I find perplexing since JustDecompile is free and Load WinRT Metadata is in the Load Framework menu. Looking back, I consider this the most important feature of the Q3 2012 release (yes, it’s been there since October 2012).

The New, Improved Plugin Manager

We may have been delayed by WinRT and .NET 4.5, but we didn’t forget about the plugin manager.

You no longer need to do the plugin dance of clicking a link, downloading a zip, then extracting it to a directory. Instead, just browse the list of plugins, and then click the Download button for one that catches your interest. You can also disable installed plugins, uninstall them, or view each plugin’s license.

The link to the plugin page is still there, but it serves a new purpose: to help you create plugins. Visit the plugin page to access the API documentation or submit your extension to share with the world!


About the Author

Chris Eargle

is a Microsoft C# MVP with over a decade of experience designing and developing enterprise applications, and he runs the local .NET User Group: the Columbia Enterprise Developers Guild. He is a frequent guest of conferences and community events promoting best practices and new technologies. Chris is a native Carolinian; his family settled the Dutch Form region of South Carolina in 1752. He currently resides in Columbia with his wife, Binyue, his dog, Laika, and his three cats: Meeko, Tigger, and Sookie. Amazingly, they all get along... except for Meeko, who is by no means meek.

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