Need help with almost completed plugin engine project

Question

Hi all,
For a while now I have been working on a plugin engine. After a few iterations, the engine is similar to the Eclipse engine, in that plugins use extension points and extensions to allow contributions. Unlike the eclipse engine I have added the ability for plugins to fire events through the engine and other plugins can add listeners, all through the plugin.xml manifest. Dependencies are mostly handled automatically at plugin load time (when extensions get resolved to extension points, and listeners get resolved to events). For the case where a plugin needs to use classes from another plugin, dependencies are also allowed to be declared. Like the eclipse engine, activation of plugins occurs the first time a class is used within the plugin's classpath, OR a plugin can be activated after it is loaded.
What I need help with is testing, working on examples to provide with the engine project, and feedback/suggestions before we release the M1 build. I am asking for those that are interested in this type of work to volunteer to help where applicable and possible. I want to provide a solid plugin engine to the java community, one that is easy to use, works well, and is pretty effecient in terms of resource usage and performance.
Of particular interest to me right at the moment is dealing with multiple versions. As I see it, the engine will be used within an application and as such plugins would be distributed with a specific application version. The plugin version itself is more of a notification as to what version a plugin is, although I imagine it will help when updating at runtime as well.
Just a few other details of the engine. It handles (or will soon) dynamic load, unload and reload of plugins at runtime. Plugins can be distributed in an archive file format, we call .par (Plugin ARchive), with additional plugin filename extensions configurable at runtime. The plugins can be developed and deployed in an expanded directory format as they are in Eclipse as well, or in the archive format. In the archive format they do not need to be unzipped when deployed, and they can contain embeded jar/zip libraries. The engine handles finding and creating classes directly out of the .par file at runtime.
Multiple locations to find plugins are configurable before the engine starts, and even after it starts more could be added to allow additional locations to find plugins. URLs are supported, and soon the HTTP protocol will be supported so that plugins can be downloaded and installed at runtime.
The project can be found at www.sourceforge.net/projects/genpluginengine. If you would like to get involved and help out, please sign up on the dev mail list and send an email to introduce yourself to the rest of the members on the list.
I'll also add that I am working on a Swing UI Framework built entirely from plugins. It provides a ready-to-launce UI application that developers can simply add their plugins to, extending various extension points of the framework to have menu items, toolbar buttons, status bar access, help and preferences dialog additions, file i/o choosers, tons of open-source components ready to use (or extend to add on to), and like Eclipse, hopefully... draggable window frames that can be dropped on any other frame to form a tabbed frame of windows. Some of this is a ways off, some is getting there now. Presently you can add menu items that do allow plugin activation when first clicked, so plugins can be loaded but not activated until needed. The Preference dialog works but is not completed, and a plugin that adds a plugin control panel to view all loaded plugins, activate them, load/unload/reload, view extension points, extensions, dependencies, etc is partially completed. The point is, to allow a ready to run UI framework in Swing with an easy path for developers to quickly build applications with. If you are interested in this, when you join the mail list and introduce yourself, indicate that you are interested in this as well, as we need help with plugin development for it and would appreciate more help here too.
Look forward to some replies.

Answer 1

Might I suggest setting up a project at a known project-site? I've seen your progress and questions posted here from time to time, but one of the drawbacks is that you have to fill each post with the entirity of your vision to explain what you're doing. That's a lot of text to read - and most folks will skip right over it.
On the other hand, a well-crafted, good-looking project web-site, with appropriate links and docs and vision statements, diagrams, etc. will have more likelyhood of attracting volunteers. java.net and sourceforge.net are likely spots to set up shop. In addition, you get CVS and bug-tracking systems, which can be quite valuable in such a large-scale project where there are lots of pieces.