Continuing on my quest for a good plugin implementation I have been testing the StructureMap assembly scanning features.

All plugins will inherit from abstract class PluginBase. This will provide access to common application services such as logging. Depending on it's function, each plugin may then implement additional interfaces, for example, IStartUpTask.

I am initializing my plugins like so:

            Scan(x => {
            x.AssembliesFromPath(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/Plugins"),
                assembly => assembly.GetName().Name.Contains("Extension"));             
            x.AddAllTypesOf<PluginBase>();
        });

The difficulty I am then having is how to work against the interface (not the PluginBase) in code. It's easy enough to work with PluginBase:

            var plugins = ObjectFactory.GetAllInstances<PluginBase>();

        foreach (var plugin in plugins)
        {

        }

But specific functionality (e.g. IStartUpTask.RunTask) is tied to the interface, not the base class.

I appreciate this may not be specific to structuremap (perhaps more a question of reflection).

Thanks, Ben