Use of "Custom Extenions"

The EDER-tool does in fact already contain a large number of options to be able to support user requirements. But there will still be the need for additional features.

In order to add a new feature, the “original procedure” was to add it to the tool and to add the additional user interface in order to configure it. But this approach will increase the - already quite extensive - number of options and makes it more difficult to use the tool for every user, not just those who actually need this option. In addition to that, for every additional option, a new release of the tool has to be provided.

In order to overcome this, the mechanism of “external-dll’s” has been implemented. The term “dll” stands for “dynamic link library”, a concept which is used extensively in Windows. These “extension-dll’s” can be loaded in addition to the EDER-tool (which is in fact also a “dll”) when running the tool in order to provide the additional functionality. Each extension has its own configuration dialog.