Re: Plugin System

[<msevior physics unimelb edu au>]

Hi Everyone,
            I shortened the CC list! I have been reading this thread but
haven't understood all the details.

However from my experience with the AbiWord plugins we should have the
following capabilities:

An XML description of the plugin, it's location in the menu structure(s)
(it might appear in the main menu or one or more context menu's) and/or
toolbar structure, it's name and it's tooltip. This all needs to be
localizable.

At startup the plugin loader should recognize these and update the
applications menu and toolbar structure.

However we should also have the option of waiting until first execution
for actually loading the plugin.

This defers the startup speed hit until the plugin actually needed, while
making sure that user knows the plugin is available from the menu
structure.

If the GIMP did something like this it's startup time would be redcued by
about a factor 3.

Cheers

Martin