Plugin API

  • Unified plugin interface across all libraries
  • Plugins are loaded on demand
  • Plugins meta-description in XML (merit of each plugin is user-based)
  • Global registry for plugins.
  • Query-based plugin discovery (sort by type, merit, mime type)

INSTALLATION.

Although the OPL changes on Win32 do not require this step, the use of OFX on OS/X and Linux requires it to be installed . You should checkout from the OFX CVS repository (openfx.cvs.sourceforge.net) the module include. On Win32 this step is necessary when building the plugin so you need to account for it.

The autotools configuration files have been updated and a new m4 macro now controls the detection of OFX. As usual a custom prefix for installation can be specified as a command line option to the configure script. By default it will look on /usr/local/include/OFX. On Win32 it is assumed that the include location is C:\OFX.

No compilation step for OFX will be needed since is headers only. It will not be needed to installed them either! Nothing else has dependencies on OFX apart from OpenLibraries.

OPL CHANGES

OPL was modified so OFX plugins and OPL plugins can be treated uniformly as they were part of the same API. This avoids separate initialisation steps for both of the APIs and allows for plugins to be discovered transparently. It also reflects the more generic nature of OPL as a plugin abstraction API.

A generic transformation step was added to OPL so it can handle arbitrary plugin APIs (e.g. Adobe After Effects or Photoshop).

By default OPL will search for its own plugins and then OFX plugins. This step will *always* happen now. OFX plugins are effective native to OPL now.

Any filter creation that currently occurs remains unaltered.

In order for the above to happen, OPL now supports so called "stub" plugins that cannot be instantiated. Instead they will only provide the necessary metadata information required for a UI display and any instantiation of these plugins is refered to the "binding" plugin that implements it. In the case of OFX that plugin is ofx_plugin (still not in CVS).

The default installation directory of OFX plugins is:

Win32: C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins Linux:/usr/OFX/Plugins OS/X:/Library/OFX/Plugins

The contents of environment variable OFX_PLUGIN_PATH are also included in the search.