ArcObjects Library Reference (Framework)

AppRef CoClass

A reference to the currently running application.

Product Availability

Available with ArcGIS Desktop.

Supported Platforms

Windows

Interfaces

Interfaces	Description
IApplication	Provides access to members that query or modify the application.

Remarks

If for some reason you can't easily get a reference to the Application object in your code, you can create a new AppRef object. For example, there are cases where you may implement an object that exists within the application framework but there is no way to traverse the application hierarchy from that object. In order to provide developers access to the application object there is a singleton object that provides a pointer to the running application object.

Note you can only use the AppRef object if your code is running inside one of the ArcGIS application processes.

[C#]

Since AppRef is a singleton, you should use the Activator class to create an instance of it.

// Get the actual underlying COM type
Type t=Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(typeof(AppRefClass).GUID);
// Or if ProgID or CLSID is known, use it directly
//Type t=Type.GetTypeFromProgID("esriFramework.AppRef");
//Type t=Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(new Guid("e1740ec5-9513-11d2-a2df-0000f8774fb5"));
System.Object obj=Activator.CreateInstance(t);
IApplication app=obj as IApplication;

[Visual Basic .NET]

Since AppRef is a singleton, you should use the Activator class to create an instance of it.

Dim t As Type=Type.GetTypeFromProgID("esriFramework.AppRef")
Dim obj As System.Object=Activator.CreateInstance(t)
Dim app As IApplication=obj

AppRef is the one and only instance of its class.