MC IDE - developer tool additions - sugggestion

[Robert Brenstein]

>At the Yahoo Group where the projec lives there are two review 
>versions which contain a Plugins menu.  During review there were 
>requests for allowing folks to select the folder the plugins reside 
>in (this request has been made for Rev as well), and I'm adding that 
>now.

I looked at the two plugin tests and I feel more comfortable with 
Richard's. Being able to specify custom location of the plugins 
folder will be a handy addition. Actually, I would like for IDE to 
check both its local plugins folder (for plugins that are specific 
for this version) and my custom plugin folder (for plugins that are 
universal).

However, it seems to me that the plugins menu is essentially just a 
convinience launchpad for various utility stacks. I'd like to see 
also an option for plugin in library stacks. I mean stacks that IDE 
automatically starts using when it launches. This could be easily 
addressed by having a parallel "library" folder or by requiring 
libraryStack handler present in the card script.

Libary stacks should be included in the plugin menu but probably 
after a separator line to distinguish them from others.

This functionality would also allow us to have active plugins, 
plugins that modify the IDE in some active (but non-permanent) way: 
since the starts using sends a message, we can use it to activate the 
required features.

Actually, I can see also a third class of plugins which is between 
the library stacks (which are always in use) and passive (utility) 
plugin stacks (which are called only explicitely from the menu) -- 
plugins that require an activation message but do not need to be 
among stacksinuse. In other words, plugins that do a one-time action 
at start (like if all they do is to install a backscript or 
frontscript or change some global setting like script editor font or 
open tools palette [I for one modify each version of home stack to do 
so]).

I think recognizing three classes of plugins would be a worthwhile 
extension of the concept of plugins allowing more flexibility in 
setting up our development environments and transferring our 
preferences/modifications from one version of IDE to another and even 
reducing the number of changes required in the IDE (mctools) itself.

Robert Brenstein