Thread: 100% Plugin based Front End

Holy crap. For a minute there I thought I was actually smart and contributing to something here. What a relief.

100% Plugin based Front End

I’m writing a framework at the moment. Everything that sits in the framework is plug-in based and the framework will skin each plug-in independently.

ETA: Around December to have the main framework and the sys-info/audio/video plugins working. When these are functioning correct and I shall release it and hope that people fancy’s writing plug-in’s!

The apps rather imaginatively named MC^2 (Modular Car Media Control)

I will most probably add the following plugins:
Satnav,
ODB,
IO Control.

Oh and somebody commented on efficiency. Well its not written in VB so that should help

If anyone wants more info on it pm, post, email...whatever.

Oh, its free (of course) and I will provide plugin example code.

In theory then; each plugin would effectively act as separate app thats loaded when the button is pressed in the gui's main windo, so system resources would be dependant on how hungry the plugin at the time is being run?? Also, I guess load time would be minimal, as the main app would only need to read what plugins are in a folder and then display relevant buttons for them?

As this is plugin based, would there be a generic button image with text overlayed be used, or is there another method?

Originally Posted by custardbomb

In theory then; each plugin would effectively act as separate app thats loaded when the button is pressed in the gui's main windo, so system resources would be dependant on how hungry the plugin at the time is being run?? Also, I guess load time would be minimal, as the main app would only need to read what plugins are in a folder and then display relevant buttons for them?

As this is plugin based, would there be a generic button image with text overlayed be used, or is there another method?

Kinda. Depending on the framework, the plugin may be loaded at application startup, only when its first called, or even every time it is called. The last one not being recommended, because most process need to perform background execution or retain its current state. That one would also hinder performance, having to create the plugin objects everytime it is called.

Plugins are not seperate apps though (app be defined as a seperate system process). They are just objects(if object oriented) that are not hard coded into the main application, but reside in a seperate assembly which is then called and loaded from the main application (which doesn't know anything about the plugin, only that it usually inherits a common class or interface).

As far as the button issue, I have seen this handled in several ways. One being how you just described, others being interacting with plugin to get an icon and text and generating a button that way, and another being pre-defined images built into a skin, which defines a set of required plugins. My framework uses a combination of the last two.

For my framework:

Plugins are loaded when its called, although I might have a little experiment to see the differing performance in loading them at startup.

Mine are different objects.

As this is plugin based, would there be a generic button image with text overlayed be used

Pretty much except a little different in how that occurrs.

Originally Posted by polus

The apps rather imaginatively named MC^2 (Modular Car Media Control)

Shouldn't it be (MC)^2 ?

I suppose to be mathematically correct it should.

Stop ****ing on my fire...

lol, I'm just pulling your leg (and ****ing on your fire). I guess the order of operations is different in language than it is in math.