Could not load file or assembly in Solidworks addin

Question

I'm attempting to create a Solidworks plugin with AngelSix's SolidDna library. I've used the standard setup as per the examples:

public class Integration : AddInIntegration
{

    // All overrides left blank
    public override void ApplicationStartup()
    {
    }

    public override void ConfigureServices(FrameworkConstruction construction)
    {
    }

    public override void PreConnectToSolidWorks()
    {
    }

    public override void PreLoadPlugIns()
    {
    }
}

public class MySolidDnaPlugin : SolidPlugIn
{
    public override string AddInTitle { get; } = "foo";
    public override string AddInDescription { get; } = "bar";

    public override void ConnectedToSolidWorks()
    {
        // This works fine...
        Boo.Lang.List l = new Boo.Lang.List();

        // ....But this doesn't :(
        Boo.Lang.Compiler.BooCompiler c = new Boo.Lang.Compiler.BooCompiler();
    }

    public override void DisconnectedFromSolidWorks()
    {
    }

}

I'm attempting to add support for scripting in Boo, so users can edit the scripts on the fly. I've added a reference to Boo.Lang.dll, Boo.Lang.Compiler.dll and Boo.Lang.Parser.dll, and all 3 DLLs are definitely copied to the /bin folder.

I'm able to use classes from the Boo.Lang namespace, but as soon as I try and use the Boo.Lang.Compiler namespace it throws an error:

Could not load file or assembly 'Boo.Lang, Version=2.0.9.4, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken-32c39770e9a21a67' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot file the file specified.

The same code/setup works fine when running outside Solidworks, e.g. in a console app.

The SolidDna docs show the process of registering the plugin DLLs with regasm.exe /codebase, so I tried running that with the 3 Boo DLLs, but that doesn't make any difference.

Any suggestions or pointers?

Answer 1

My guess would be that you added those binaries to addin folder, while process is looking for those files in solidworks.exe folder.

I suggest you to confirm it with ProcMon tool.

If that is the case there are multiple ways to resolve this:

1 add those binaries to solidworks folder

2 add those folders to any of the folders in the path environment variable

3 add your addin folder to path environment variable

4 If those binaries as well as your addin are .net assemblies you can use ilmerge to combine them into one.

5 If your addin is .net assembly and you have access to appdomain object you can subscribe to AssemblyResolve event and provide path dynamically.