Where are the Syncfusion assemblies installed and how do I use them in Miscellaneous Install and Configure?

Where are the Syncfusion assemblies installed and how do I use them?

Binary Version:

When you install a binary version of our product, our libraries get installed under the "..\Essential Suite\PreCompiledAssemblies" and "..\Essential Suite\Assemblies" folders. The libraries under the Assemblies folder also get installed in your GAC during install time. So, there are 3 locations in your machine where our libraries get installed.

When you add a reference to a Syncfusion assembly in your project, link to the one under the Assemblies directory and set the "Copy Local" setting to be False (which is the case by default). With this setting, when you run the corresponding built .exe, it will load the corresponding Syncfusion library in the GAC. This is the recommended model for linking to our libraries.

Visual Studio automatically detects the version of the Syncfusion assemblies that are in the Assemblies folder. This means that if you want to manually add a reference in your project for example, you can select the assemby directly from the ".NET" tab in the "Add Reference" dialog.

The entries in the PreCompiledAssemblies folder just serve as back-up copies in the binary version.

Source Code Version:

The installation scheme and recommended usage pattern is the same as for the binary version as explained above. Read further for details on how the source code is installed and how the AssemblyManager helps you use locally built versions of our assemblies.

We install the source code for our products under the ..\Essential Suite\prodcut_name\src folder (Essential Suite\Tools\src folder for example). There is also a project under this folder that will allow you to build the corresponding Syncfusion assembly. This project is set up to create a delay-signed version of our assembly that can be installed in the GAC.

We recommend to use the same linking scheme as for our pre-built versions while linking to the locally built versions of our assemblies. This is where the AssemblyManager tool (in the Essential Suite\Assembly Manager directory) comes into picture.

The AssemblyManager tool lets you install one of the 3 build-versions of our assemblies into the Assemblies folder. You can choose either the "pre-built" version (the one under the PreCompiledAssemblies) or one of the locally built versions (under the product_name\bin\debug or product_name\bin\release directory). Note that these 3 build-versions will however have the same assembly version and public key. When you select your preferred assembly build-version, the AssemblyManager will delete the exisiting version in the Assemblies folder and put a copy of the selected version into it. It then installs this version into the GAC (replacing the exisiting one). This way all your projects and .exes will now start linking to your preferred build-version.

The AssemblyManager will also build a local debug version for you, if it is not already built, when you select that option.

With this default installer, all you have to do to start debugging into our assemblies is to select the Debug version via the AssemblyManager and then start stepping into our source code from your projects.