For plugin writers: Interplugin communication

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Am i missing something? seems to me that there is not really a way to do interplugin communication... I was going to code something, but had to give up cause i couldnt use other plugin trough xlobby plugin interface.

We plugin writers really should seek solution for this... cause its just plain stupid (and against code reuse principle) that we keep implementing same stuff just because we cant utilize eachothers plugins. I can see there two aproach available to remedy situation:

I) We could collect a mob and demand Steven to beef-up the interface or else...

or,

II) We could write a meta-plugin, which could implement regular xlobby sdk interface and provide other interface (which is superset of xlobby SDK) for other plugins. Basicly metaplugin would just proxy information between plugins and xlobby, but also directly between plugins. Old plugins would work together with metaplugin right away since its plugin interface would be superset of Xlobby SDK, but also there could be possibility to Expand SDK for new plugins, for example with commands for centralized plugin management... So metaplugin could present plugins as category to xlobby user, who could turn plugins on and off or possibly update plugin (mayby from french server?) trough xlobbys interface... and mayby some other novel functions?

[dalanik]

But on the other hand, it's better to duplicate code, than to reduce total plugins size from 30Mb to 27Mb (I've 2 Gigs of RAM, OK?) and risk all sorts of problems... it would be 10x harder to debug anything if you're not sure which plugin is causing it (for ordinary users). Then you would have plugin dependencies, i.e. if you want this, you need that plugin as well (and you don't want that other plugin), so less space argument is in question.

I dunno, I think you're complicating stuff too much...

cheers,
D.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

I think u missunderstanded me... Space never was the issue... But coding time and trouble...

[dalanik]

I think u missunderstanded me... Space never was the issue... But coding time and trouble...

Aha, yea, that's true. but this could lead to different kinds of problems... what is it that u need so much from other plugins?

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

I think u missunderstanded me... Space never was the issue... But coding time and trouble...

Aha, yea, that's true. but this could lead to different kinds of problems... what is it that u need so much from other plugins?

What u mentioned about dependency and debugging probs is certainly true. Well probably most plugins wouldnt still use services of others thought.

Its rather irrelevant what i needed right now, (it was just current weather image from xoap plugin, cause i was working on "euroweather", skin example to demonstrate next generation enchanted cat features for xPerTs next release version, and i think it would be just plain ridicilous to code own weather plugin just because of skin demonstrating totally other features.) but i can imagine much more important occasions and ive noticed also here on board that not accessing variables of other plugins can be anoying hindrance.