In the Dataflow library / Dataflow.Signals layer review discussions, a few people have mentioned the potential usefulness of loading components at runtime (e.g., from a shared library). I put together a small example of how this could be done for Dataflow.Signals components using the (prototype) Dataflow.Blueprint layer and the Extension library: http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/SOC/2007/signals/libs/dataflow/exampl... The component_add.cpp file contains the implementation of a component (that adds two numbers and outputs the result), and the code required to access it through an Extension factory_map. The extension_example.cpp file loads the shared library created from component_add.cpp, instantiates the provided component, and uses it to complete a network. The Blueprint layer is still under development (and has somewhat ugly syntax), but I hope this example can still demonstrate some future possibilities of the Dataflow library with regards to loading components at run-time. It has been tested to work with MSVC 2005. Regards, Stjepan