Plugins, fonts

[Robert Brenstein]

>Could they also be done via the auto-open type:
>
>on preOpenStack
>   doMyOneStartupThing
>   close this stack
>end preOpenStack
>
>Cheers
>
>Monte
>

Well, Monte, and how do you know whether preOpenStack is to run the 
doMyOneStartupThing and close or whether to open the stack properly 
(see the example as I just posted in reply to Ken).

I looked at the plugin model used in Rev and found it powerful but 
overly complicated. I agree with Richard that we should keep things 
as simple as possible in MC IDE. However, we should still try to make 
them right.

I am not proposing this new type haphazzardly. I have been "playing" 
with plugins since b1 and we got as far as b4. In the meantime I have 
coded a number of plugins of different types and functionality (and 
envisioned even more). I realized that

a) using libraries as non-libraries is a hack
b) there is no 100% certain way to distinguish when preopenstack is 
executed from auto-open and from manual open.

Sure, all MC programmers are advanced and we can code hacks in our 
stacks that do things the way we want them. However, plugin stacks 
are likely to be shared among other developers, so should be coded 
more like products. And the framework of the plugin technology we set 
in place now is not only for today.

Note that there no penalty whatsoever to having the new type. It does 
not complicate things for using plugin manager either (except for 
having an extra checkbox in the window). One will use it only when 
needed.

Robert Brenstein