kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Brian,

Sounds good to me, although I’d also push getting a timestamp from a library path to the bottom level.  (Use the longer form of the name, we have plugin architectures for other things too.)

Cheers,
Jeff.


> On 19 Mar 2019, at 18:41, Brian <lotharyx@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Fellow KiCad developers,
> 
> A little while ago the topic of unifying the IO plugin mechanism came up.  I mentioned I'd be happy to work on that, and to that end, I'd like to open up discussion on a few design ideas I have.
> 
> - Unifying abstract base class, IO_PLUGIN (or simply PLUGIN)
> This interface would only expose very generic query methods (e.g. what's your name, what kind of plugin are you, can you read this file).  All plugin types would inherit from it, in order to be stored together in a collection.
> 
> - An enum defining plugin type
> I think there might be only two values to start with, SCHEMATIC_PLUGIN or BOARD_PLUGIN (or some such), and would indicate to what specific type of plugin any given ABC pointer could be safely cast.  If other sorts of plugins get rolled into the registry, this enum could be expanded.
> 
> - Primary key of string instead of enum
> At present, the plugins for both schematic and board plugins have their own enums for identifying each plugin.  I propose a shift to using strings as the primary key, and allow the registry to assign ephemeral integer keys at run-time (if such integer keys are even needed).  I think this is a useful step toward supporting DSO/DLL plugins in the future (a DSO/DLL writer need not modify KiCad source, merely pick a unique string, which the registry could even automatically de-collide if necessary).
> 
> This registry class would present a static interface by which plugins could be enumerated by type, found by name, filename, etc., building on the design presently implemented by pcbnew's IO_MGR.
> 
> I'm eager to get input from members of the core group of developers and reach a consensus on a design I can start implementing.
> 
> Cheers,
> -Brian
> 
> 
> 
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