1. Plug-in for Extended Design Report

1. Right-click on the report project and select Properties.
2. Under Application, set the Output type to Class Library.
3. Build the project to create the necessary files in the \bin folder.
4. Copy the compiled ExampleReport.dll to the PCB-Investigator (Beta) plugin folder¹⁾.
5. Open your installed PCB-Investigator Beta. Your report should now appear as an entry in the Extended Design Report and can be combined with other reports as needed.

For debugging to work properly, the following additional steps must be carried out.

1. Set the Build Configuration to Debug.
2. Copy the PCB-Investigator (Beta) plugin folder¹⁾ into the bin\Debug folder of the project. If the Debug folder doesn't exist simply create it.
3. Under Debug set the Start action to Start external program. Use Browse to select the PCB-Investigator.exe file located in the bin\Debug folder of the project.
4. Under Build set the output path to the bin\Debug\PlugIn folder.
5. Running the project will open a PCB-Investigator instance. Open the Extended Design Report there and the report should appear as an entry.

You can now start porgramming and customize the report to your needs. The starting point for the embedded report is the ReportPlugin class. It implements the IPluginReport interface which provides the methods that are called by the Extended Design Report. This also includes the method that returns the actual HtmlReport class to the Extended Design Report. More information on the individual classes of the Example HTML Report can be found in the next section.

When you are finished programming the report, simply repeat steps 4 and 5 from above. You can also create a post-build process to automate step 4 if you wish.