IDE Plug-ins
One of the ways to interact programmatically with the UModel graphical user interface is creating your own plug-ins for UModel, as DLL libraries. With UModel Integrated Development Environment (IDE) plug-ins, it is possible to achieve the following:
•Customize UModel (for example, add commands through custom menus, icons, or buttons)
•React to events from UModel
•Run your specific code within UModel with access to the complete UModel API
•Integrate your own ActiveX controls into UModel
Plug-ins can be written either as a COM application (in C++) or in a .NET language suitable for COM interoperability, such as C#. Any UModel plug-in must implement the IUModelPlugIn interface. Other prerequisites specific to .NET COM interoperability apply, as further described in this documentation.
A few Visual Studio solutions that illustrate how to access UModel functionality through a custom plug-in are available at the following path: C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Altova\UModel2025\UModelExamples\IDEPlugIn.
Limitations
When developing a UModel IDE plug-in, avoid setting the VisualStyleState property of the System.Windows.Forms.Application object, for example:
System.Windows.Forms.Application.VisualStyleState = VisualStyleState.NoneEnabled;
The setting above prevents the COM class from being created and consequently blocks the File | Open and File | Save As menu commands in UModel when the plug-in is loaded.