A call for inter-plugin communication

[Richard Gaskin]

Andre Garzia wrote:
> I've been wondering why most of the plugins for LC do not publish an API
> that developers (and other plugins) can call. Since the addition of
> "dispatch", plugin developers could provide an API in the form of
> dispatchable calls, it would be great. The plugins could dispatch some
> calls to a registered object. This way we could start to exchange data
> between our plugins. For example, I could build a "Dropbox IDE service
> plugin", all plugins wanting to save stuff to dropbox could do it thru my
> service plugin.
>
> In mock xtalk script could go like:
>
> dispatch "register_plugin" to stack "dropbox_service"
>
> put "blablabla" into tParamsA["content"]
> put "file.txt" into tParamsA["filename"]
> dispatch "save_file" to stack "dropbox_service" with tParamsA
>
> This would save other developers the need to implement dropbox on their own
> for usage inside the IDE. Other useful cases could be for installers,
> Developers who build Installers maker tools, could provide a set of APIs
> that we could call, for example from inside standaloneSaved message. People
> who build color pickers, could provide an API so that we could call their
> pickers.
>
> I am not saying that we need inter-plugin communications on standalones. I
> think it is useful to have this kind of technology inside the IDE where we
> have a dozen plugins that don't talk to each other.
>
> Anyone care for a comment?

Some of this has been anticipated and spec'd in the Rev Interoperability 
Guidelines at the RIP project:
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/revInterop/>

As a working group focused on such things, perhaps that might be a good 
place to further such goals.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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