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Extending the My Namespace in Visual Basic

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The My namespace in Visual Basic exposes properties and methods that enable you to easily take advantage of the power of the .NET Framework. The My namespace simplifies common programming problems, often reducing a difficult task to a single line of code. Additionally, the My namespace is fully extensible so that you can customize the behavior of My and add new services to its hierarchy to adapt to specific application needs. This topic discusses both how to customize existing members of the My namespace and how to add your own custom classes to the My namespace.

Customizing existing My namespace members

The My namespace in Visual Basic exposes frequently used information about your application, your computer, and more. For a complete list of the objects in the My namespace, see My Reference. You may have to customize existing members of the My namespace so that they better match the needs of your application. Any property of an object in the My namespace that is not read-only can be set to a custom value.

For example, assume that you frequently use the My.User object to access the current security context for the user running your application. However, your company uses a custom user object to expose additional information and capabilities for users within the company. In this scenario, you can replace the default value of the My.User.CurrentPrincipal property with an instance of your own custom principal object, as shown in the following example:

My.User.CurrentPrincipal = CustomPrincipal

Setting the CurrentPrincipal property on the My.User object changes the identity under which the application runs. The My.User object, in turn, returns information about the newly specified user.

Adding members to My objects

The types returned from My.Application and My.Computer are defined as Partial classes. Therefore, you can extend the My.Application and My.Computer objects by creating a Partial class named MyApplication or MyComputer. The class cannot be a Private class. If you specify the class as part of the My namespace, you can add properties and methods that will be included with the My.Application or My.Computer objects.

The following example adds a property named DnsServerIPAddresses to the My.Computer object:

Imports System.Net.NetworkInformation

Namespace My

  Partial Class MyComputer
    Friend ReadOnly Property DnsServerIPAddresses() As IPAddressCollection
      Get
        Dim dnsAddressList As IPAddressCollection = Nothing

        For Each adapter In System.Net.NetworkInformation.
          NetworkInterface.GetAllNetworkInterfaces()

          Dim adapterProperties = adapter.GetIPProperties()
          Dim dnsServers As IPAddressCollection = adapterProperties.DnsAddresses
          If dnsAddressList Is Nothing Then
            dnsAddressList = dnsServers
          Else
            dnsAddressList.Union(dnsServers)
          End If
        Next adapter

        Return dnsAddressList
      End Get
    End Property
  End Class

End Namespace

Adding custom objects to the My namespace

Although the My namespace provides solutions for many common programming tasks, you may encounter tasks that the My namespace does not address. For example, your application might access custom directory services for user data, or your application might use assemblies that are not installed by default with Visual Basic. You can extend the My namespace to include custom solutions to common tasks that are specific to your environment. The My namespace can easily be extended to add new members to meet growing application needs. Additionally, you can deploy your My namespace extensions to other developers as a Visual Basic template.

Adding members to the My namespace

Because My is a namespace like any other namespace, you can add top-level properties to it by just adding a module and specifying a Namespace of My. Annotate the module with the HideModuleName attribute as shown in the following example. The HideModuleName attribute ensures that IntelliSense will not display the module name when it displays the members of the My namespace.

Namespace My
  <HideModuleName()> 
  Module MyCustomModule

  End Module
End Namespace

To add members to the My namespace, add properties as needed to the module. For each property added to the My namespace, add a private field of type ThreadSafeObjectProvider(Of T), where the type is the type returned by your custom property. This field is used to create thread-safe object instances to be returned by the property by calling the GetInstance method. As a result, each thread that is accessing the extended property receives its own instance of the returned type. The following example adds a property named SampleExtension that is of type SampleExtension to the My namespace:

Namespace My
  <HideModuleName()> 
  Module MyCustomExtensions
    Private _extension As New ThreadSafeObjectProvider(Of SampleExtension)
    Friend ReadOnly Property SampleExtension() As SampleExtension
      Get
        Return _extension.GetInstance()
      End Get
    End Property
  End Module
End Namespace

Adding events to custom My objects

You can use the My.Application object to expose events for your custom My objects by extending the MyApplication partial class in the My namespace. For Windows-based projects, you can double-click the My Project node in for your project in Solution Explorer. In the Visual Basic Project Designer, click the Application tab and then click the View Application Events button. A new file that is named ApplicationEvents.vb will be created. It contains the following code for extending the MyApplication class:

Namespace My
  Partial Friend Class MyApplication
  End Class
End Namespace

You can add event handlers for your custom My objects by adding custom event handlers to the MyApplication class. Custom events enable you to add code that will execute when an event handler is added, removed, or the event is raised. Note that the AddHandler code for a custom event runs only if code is added by a user to handle the event. For example, consider that the SampleExtension object from the previous section has a Load event that you want to add a custom event handler for. The following code example shows a custom event handler named SampleExtensionLoad that will be invoked when the My.SampleExtension.Load event occurs. When code is added to handle the new My.SampleExtensionLoad event, the AddHandler part of this custom event code is executed. The MyApplication_SampleExtensionLoad method is included in the code example to show an example of an event handler that handles the My.SampleExtensionLoad event. Note that the SampleExtensionLoad event will be available when you select the My Application Events option in the left drop-down list above the Code Editor when you are editing the ApplicationEvents.vb file.

Namespace My

  Partial Friend Class MyApplication

    ' Custom event handler for Load event.
    Private _sampleExtensionHandlers As EventHandler

    Public Custom Event SampleExtensionLoad As EventHandler
      AddHandler(ByVal value As EventHandler)
        ' Warning: This code is not thread-safe. Do not call
        ' this code from multiple concurrent threads.
        If _sampleExtensionHandlers Is Nothing Then
          AddHandler My.SampleExtension.Load, AddressOf OnSampleExtensionLoad
        End If
        _sampleExtensionHandlers = 
            System.Delegate.Combine(_sampleExtensionHandlers, value)
      End AddHandler
      RemoveHandler(ByVal value As EventHandler)
        _sampleExtensionHandlers = 
          System.Delegate.Remove(_sampleExtensionHandlers, value)
      End RemoveHandler
      RaiseEvent(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
        If _sampleExtensionHandlers IsNot Nothing Then
          _sampleExtensionHandlers.Invoke(sender, e)
        End If
      End RaiseEvent
    End Event

    ' Method called by custom event handler to raise user-defined
    ' event handlers.
    <Global.System.ComponentModel.EditorBrowsable( 
         Global.System.ComponentModel.EditorBrowsableState.Advanced)> 
      Protected Overridable Sub OnSampleExtensionLoad( 
                ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
      RaiseEvent SampleExtensionLoad(sender, e)
    End Sub

    ' Event handler to call My.SampleExtensionLoad event.
    Private Sub MyApplication_SampleExtensionLoad( 
        ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs
        ) Handles Me.SampleExtensionLoad

    End Sub
  End Class
End Namespace

Design guidelines

When you develop extensions to the My namespace, use the following guidelines to help minimize the maintenance costs of your extension components:

  • Include only the extension logic. The logic included in the My namespace extension should include only the code that is needed to expose the required functionality in the My namespace. Because your extension will reside in user projects as source code, updating the extension component incurs a high maintenance cost and should be avoided if possible.
  • Minimize project assumptions. When you create your extensions of the My namespace, do not assume a set of references, project-level imports, or specific compiler settings (for example, Option Strict off). Instead, minimize dependencies and fully qualify all type references by using the Global keyword. Also, ensure that the extension compiles with Option Strict on to minimize errors in the extension.
  • Isolate the extension code. Placing the code in a single file makes your extension easily deployable as a Visual Studio item template. For more information, see "Packaging and Deploying Extensions" later in this topic. Placing all the My namespace extension code in a single file or a separate folder in a project will also help users locate the My namespace extension.

Designing class libraries for My

As is the case with most object models, some design patterns work well in the My namespace and others do not. When designing an extension to the My namespace, consider the following principles:

  • Stateless methods. Methods in the My namespace should provide a complete solution to a specific task. Ensure that the parameter values that are passed to the method provide all the input required to complete the particular task. Avoid creating methods that rely on prior state, such as open connections to resources.
  • Global instances. The only state that is maintained in the My namespace is global to the project. For example, My.Application.Info encapsulates state that is shared throughout the application.
  • Simple parameter types. Keep things simple by avoiding complex parameter types. Instead, create methods that either take no parameter input or that take simple input types such as strings, primitive types, and so on.
  • Factory methods. Some types are necessarily difficult to instantiate. Providing factory methods as extensions to the My namespace enables you to more easily discover and consume types that fall into this category. An example of a factory method that works well is My.Computer.FileSystem.OpenTextFileReader. There are several stream types available in the .NET Framework. By specifying text files specifically, the OpenTextFileReader helps the user understand which stream to use.

These guidelines do not preclude general design principles for class libraries. Rather, they are recommendations that are optimized for developers who are using Visual Basic and the My namespace. For general design principles for creating class libraries, see Framework Design Guidelines.

Packaging and deploying extensions

You can include My namespace extensions in a Visual Studio project template, or you can package your extensions and deploy them as a Visual Studio item template. When you package your My namespace extensions as a Visual Studio item template, you can take advantage of additional capabilities provided by Visual Basic. These capabilities enable you to include an extension when a project references a particular assembly, or enable users to explicitly add your My namespace extension by using the My Extensions page of the Visual Basic Project Designer.

For details about how to deploy My namespace extensions, see Packaging and Deploying Custom My Extensions.

See also