Integrated development environment access to remotely located components

摘要

Access to remotely located components for developing programs is provided with an interface that is launched from directly within an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The interface is configured to access one or more desired component repositories through a web service. A programmer can use the interface to query the component repositories for one or more desired components. The interface can also provide additional information that is known about the identified components, as obtained from the web service hosting the component repositories. Once the one or more desired components are identified, the interface can also be used to download and install the components directly into the component toolboxes of the IDE for immediate use. The components may include various files that are contained in a modified DLL file format or another format that allows the files to be authenticated.