Last.fm alternative plugin

Hi,
do you know an alternative plugin for my iTunes for last.fm?
I don't like original client. I'd like a standalone plugin that I can only copy in plug. dir.
Thank you!
Ciao!

You may need to install this version:
iTunes 12.1.0.71 for Windows (64-bit - for older video cards) - itunes64setup.exe (2015-01-28)
which is a 64-bit installer for the 32-bit version of the core application, similar to previous 64-bit releases.
tt2

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PL-JRXML2PDF alternative plugin supports Arabic

Hi,
PL-JRXML2PDF (apex plugin) is a pure PL-SQL engine used to generate PDF reports from JRXML (without printing server).
The Arabic is not supported in this engine. There is no plan to support RTL language.
Is there any alternative (apex plugin) supports Arabic.
As another path:
Is there any oracle apex plugin or alternative solution to generate PDF report from classic or interactive reports (without printing server)
Cheers
Mahmoud

How to roll back to the good last vershion where plugins work

how to roll back to the good last vershion that all plugins work ok
as 4.0 freezes with some sites.

You can install previous version of Firefox from [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html here].
<BR>For installation instructions, see this article: [[Installing a previous version of Firefox]].

Accidently deleted every last Safari 5 plugin. What do I do?

I read in previous discussion threads that in order to fix Safari 5 page load problems, one solution was to delete plugins that weren't working correctly.
I did this, and Safari 5 became very fast indeed! However, I think there were some plugins I should not have deleted, like the quicktime 10, iPhoto, and other plugins that came with the system.
I don't want to download quicktime 7 to replace the quicktime 10 plugin. I just want my old quicktime 10 plugin back.
What should I do?

What should I do?
One option -
Get Pacifist from http://www.charlessoft.com/
point it at your install dvd by clicking Pacifist-File-Open Apple Install Disks... this'll take a few minutes to load
find Library/Internet Plug Ins/ which is probably in Essential System Software - Essentials.pkg
but I don't have a 10.6 disk to say precisely.
then tell Pacifist to extract/install the plugins .
Flash at least. possibly other plugins will be out of date versions on the dvd.
But... iPhoto for one won't be in there, most likely... so that's a .pkg on another dvd,
Double-check what you're doing in Pacifist, before you click 'yes, please overwrite my files'

Presenter, Flash plugins and pain...

I will try to make this short...
I have the following:
Windows 7
Office 2010
Presenter 8 (8.0.1 build 260)
Acrobat Reader XI
IE9
I have published countless pdf's from Presenter without a hitch until recently.
When opening the pdf I am greeted with a flash error warning, so I check my pc for flash and everything is installed and working correctly.
What can it be I here you ask?
I decide to re-install Flash, so I un-install the version I have and using IE9 I go to Adobe.com and install the latest version (11.6.602.168).
This is the Active X version I here you all cry in unison!
Yes it is!
It is the version installed when you are using Windows 7 with IE9.
BUT
This version does not open my pdf's created with Presenter.
I have to download the Flash plugin for other browsers!
AHHHHHHHH!
When did this happen?
I am certain that when I last created pdf's from Presenter the standard flash plugin was able to open my files...
I have hundreds of students who may all have to download an alternative plugin because the IE9 active x plugin does not open the pdf.
This means downloading an alternative browser and installing flash from within or me sending a link out with the pdf's.
This cannot be right... surely.
please tell me I am doing something wrong and there is a simple solution or point me in the right direction...
thx

Hello,
Welcome to Adobe Forums.
As per this KB Document : http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/reader-acrobat-flash-player-download.html
Latest version of Adobe Reader and Acrobat no longer bundles a Flash Player with the application for the purposes of rendering Flash technology content within the page.
You need to install Adobe Flash Player plugin to view Flash content on a PDF
Thanks,
Vikram

I have Adobe Reader in stalled on my MacBook Pro but the plugin is not showing in FireFox so I am unable to open pdf's in browser. How can I correct?

When I encounter a site that requires me to fill in a pdf form the browser opens in Adobe Reader and not in the browser. I have checked off in Adobe Reader to open pdf's in browser but it still will not.

I do not think adobe reader works as a plugin for Firefox on Macs, ( but a PC user myself so I can not check). See [[Installing and updating Adobe Reader]]
Note specifically comments in the Mac version of that [/kb/Using%20the%20Adobe%20Reader%20plugin%20with%20Firefox?s=pdf+plugin+mac&as=s#os=mac&browser=fx35] about alternative plugins.

How do I find plugin for Windows Media Player in MacPro

In my previous PowerBook G4 I have been able to access TV newscasts from Europe, in streaming video, especially from Channel France 2. To do this, I have used Microsoft's Windows Media Player 9 for MacOS X, which comes with an asx plugin and it works fine. When I installed WMP in my new MacPro, the plugin was not installed. I queried Microsoft on how to solve this problem and I was informed that Microsoft no longer supports WMP 9 for the Mac and has no plans to upgrade it. Consequently, my alternative could be found in Windows Media Player components for Quicktime by Flip4Mac. This plugin allows you to play Windows Media Player files in the Quiktime player directly. I went to the FlipMac web site and downloaded it only to discover that the existing version will work only for G4s, not Intel Duo Macs.
Microsoft's media player 9 for the Mac is being used internationally for streaming video.
Does anyone know of an alternative plugin that would work and where do I find it?
iMac G4, PowerBook G4 and MacPro Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.6)
iMac G4, PowerBook G4 and MacPro Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.6)
iMac G4, PowerBook G4 and MacPro Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.6)

There is flip for mac and VLC
http://www.videolan.org
Give this web site a look see.
Your solution makes sense. But when I downloaded and installed VLC Media Player for Macintosh, I found that one needs to have a developer's experience to figure out how to make it work. It isn't as simple as Windows Media Player 9 which works easily after you determine Preferences. Video streaming from news outlets is instant. Instructions from videolan on how to use its media player are confusing. Is there a simple way or easy steps to set up VLC to play streaming video from network news outlets with player embedded in their web site? That's all I am interested in. Your thoughts will be much appreciated.

FXFactory Plugins did not follow, and can't install in Leopard

Greetings,
I have been using some plugins from FXFactory and they worked fine with FCP 6.0.2 in 10.4.11, but when I upgraded to 10.5.1 last night the plugins no longer worked. Not only didn't work they would not even show up in FCP. I read there were some issues with FXFactory 1.x in Leopard, so I tried to install FXFactory 2.0.1 thinking that would work, and I can install it, but none of the plugins show up in FCP.
Any ideas? This is the only thing holding me back from using Leopard, and I would like to use it if I could.
Thanks in advance for your help!
David

I have contaced Noise Industries, but I am not convinced it's a problem with their software. I can't even get the 2.0.1 package to install properly, and I have a suspicion that it might be OS related. Either way I wanted to see if anyone shared in my situation, and if not, just attempt a full OS install and see if that solves the problem.
The gentleman from Noise mentioned something about the 6.0.2 updater doing some weird things with all the plugins, not just theirs. I don't know if that is the case or not...
Thanks for your thoughs! I appreciate the help!
David

Document Service - Alternatives for dynamic conversion?

In WebCenter Portal, there's the Documents Service. If you are for example in the Document Manager task flow and click a document, it will show you a preview of the document (if configured properly, see:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E28280_01/webcenter.1111/e12405/wcadm_documents.htm#BABBCAHI) This preview is dynamically created using the Dynamic Converter component in WebCenter Content.
I've found that some users don't see the advantage of having a dynamically created preview. Generating the preview can take very long for complex documents and often the preview (of for example, a large Excel sheet) does not reveal a lof of information and people choose to download the document anyway.
Do we have any alternatives for the preview functionality? Perhaps a direct download, or alternative plugins? The only alternative I see is showing the document properties instead, but that's not very user-friendly. Any ideas?

Hi Jaap ,
I think you can take a look at the Thumbnail functionality , which would show a snippet of the actual file rather than doing an entire Dynamic conversion . Not sure how much of in-context would this solution be , but just an idea .
Use case : https://forums.oracle.com/thread/2472735
Thanks,
Srinath

Plugin-container uses a lot of CPUtime.

I like to keep a few tabs open to webpages I want to revisit or read later. So it is not uncommon for me to have 1 or two active pages I'm looking at, and 20 dormant pages I won't be looking at for a few days.
Since the last upgrade, the plugin-container is taking a lot of CPU time. (it might have been the firefox process before the upgrade, but it was less noticeable).
From the help for "plugin-container" I see that adobe flash is the only currently supported plugin. So, can I pause the flash on my inactive pages so that I can save some CPU time (and energy).
== This happened ==
Every time Firefox opened
== I upgraded.

If you want to disable plugin-container, See this KB article:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Plugin-container_and_out-of-process_plugins
The currently supported plugins are NPAPI test plugin, Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime (Windows) and Microsoft Silverlight (Windows)

Set a default GDM session (not the last used)

Hi,
I'm using autologin with GDM and I want it to always open a specific session. Basically, my install is an arcade cabinet and I want it to open my Mame front-end. Once in a while I will log out to login in a regular XFCE session to perform some tasks. It appears that GDM always considers the last session as the "preferred" session, so when I do that, it will open XFCE rather than my Mame session.
Is there a way to tell to GDM to just stick with a default session, ignoring what session was used last?
Alternatively, is there another DM that would let me have this behavior?

Not sure how accurate this is, but have you looked into your gdm.conf file?
There is an option
GnomeDefaultSession
GnomeDefaultSession=share/gnome/default.session
The filename which GDM should read if there is no per user GNOME session file, and the user has requested the Gnome Chooser session.
Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I hope it helps.

Feature Request: a way to retrieve accurate plugin disable/enable state

As it stands, LrEnablePlugin file is executed when plugin goes from disabled to enabled, and LrDisablePlugin is executed when plugin goes from enabled to disabled. Unfortunately its really hard to glean useful information because:
plugin will go from enabled to disabled then back to enabled when new metadata is added and such stuff, and there is no way to tell whether plugin is enabled or disabled after a reload, since neither module is executed unless there is a change.
It would be useful to me to be able to simply read an accurate status: enabled or disabled.
Also, if Lr needs to disable for a moment to add metadata, I'd rather have the state not reflect the temporary disablement, unless reenabling fails and it becomes permanently disabled, or better still, have it reflect the temporary-ness of the disabled state, so maybe these states:
disabled permanently
disabled temporarily (e.g. to add metadata)
enabled permanently
enabled temporarily - for case when user attempts to enable but catalog neds updating, in which case if update fails it will be re-disabled.
If this is too much, at least a minimal improvement could be had by simply having LrEnablePlugin and LrDisablePlugin not be called when Lightroom disables/enables for the sake of metadata / catalog updating, so they're only called when user clicks the buttons. This would not be as useful as accurate live status, but at least would eliminate disable / enable actions that assume the user did something he/she did not...

HI Matt,
Sorry - it was late...
Anyway, I think you've got the jest of it. To help clarify further:
There are two issues with the way things are enable/disable-wise:
1. there is no way for a plugin to tell if it is enabled or disabled.
Here's a cut from the framework:
--- Determine if plugin is enabled.
-- @usage      Note: do not depend on this reporting correctly, since default value for 'enabled' is true
--              even when plugin is disabled. Its only correct after plugin goes from enabled to disabled or vice versa after init...
function App:isPluginEnabled()
    local ena = rawget( _G, 'enabled' )
    assert( ena ~= nil, "no ena" )
    return ena
end
2. The enabled / disabled modules are executed upon temporary disablement / reenablement as well as the more permanent flavor, so they cant really be used to prompt the user, or multiple confusing prompts get issued when the state is bouncing around...
As usual, I'd like to see this improved in the next version, but I'm also open to suggestions for working around it in the mean time...
PS - I just thought of a work-around for the first issue (which primarily arises in plugins that access plugin metadata) - just try and get a known-to-be-defined metadata item - iff successful, then the plugin is enabled.
So, a possible solution:
1. Have a readable (and preferrably writable too) enable/disable state that accurately reflects right-now enable / disable state - even if temporary.
2. The ability to determine root cause of disablement, e.g. "temp-for-catalog-update", "permanent-since-catalog-update-failed", "user-initiated", ... I can imagine root cause for enablement to be useful too...
*** UPDATE: Modified method:
--- Determine if metadata-supporting plugin is enabled.
-- @param      name (string, default dummy_) name of alternative plugin metadata item (property) to be used.
-- @param      photo (lr-photo, default 1st photo of all) photo to use to check.
-- @usage      This method presently only works when a metadata item is defined. Maybe one day it will also work even with no plugin metadata defined.
-- @usage      Only works from an async task.
-- @return     enabled (boolean) true iff enabled. Throws error if not called from async task.
function App:isPluginEnabled( name, photo )
    assert( catalog, "No catalog." )
    name = name or 'dummy_' -- cant start with underscore.
    photo = photo or catalog:getAllPhotos()[1] -- getting all-photos takes ~16msec.
    assert( photo, "No photo." )
    local _dummy, msg = photo:getPropertyForPlugin( _PLUGIN, name, nil, true ) -- nil version, no-throw.
    if msg == nil then -- msg is nil if property defined and plugin enabled, even if property value is nil.
        return true
    else
        return false, msg
    end
    --local ena = rawget( _G, 'enabled' )
    --assert( ena ~= nil, "no ena" )
    --return ena
end
Rob

JavaFX plugin for Eclipse IDE problem with installation

Hello all,
I am following installation instruction from: http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/1.2/gettingstarted/eclipse-plugin/index.html
In my Eclipse IDE "Install new software" -> "Add site" the link http://javafx.com/downloads/eclipse-plugin/ is not recognized as valid software site.
I receive message:
"Unable to read repository at http://javafx.com/downloads/eclipse-plugin/.
http://javafx.com/downloads/eclipse-plugin/ is not a valid repository location."
Please help me to install JavaFX plugin for Eclipse.
Best regards,
Slawek

913150 wrote:
I appreciate someone is providing "homemade" plugins but when You want design reliable application it is better to use some widely supported solution.
Tom Schindl is the only one person who takes care about this stuff. For me it is not an option :(
I am using Eclipse because my company uses it. I used to Eclipse. However when it comes to test some new technologies form Java world I see problems.
Oracle drives Java development - they launched GlassFish, Netbeans, JavaFX.... etc. Eclipse has to catch up with every new thing but it takes time.
Assuming NetBeans developers are in better situation. Easy Glassfish integration, embeded support for JavaFX....
I don't like to use two IDE's pararelly.
Is there any chance that official plugin for JavaFX 2.0 will be available?
Funny how you rant about all that and still demand answers about Eclipse in the Oracle Java forum.
This has nothing to do with how Eclipse advances; "Eclipse" is only the bare IDE and a minimal set of plugins. Basically everything that you bolt onto it is a third party, or "home made" plugin. Some plugins will be updated quickly, others more slowly depending on how active the developers are. Its just how Eclipse works. At least try this alternative plugin, perhaps it is usable until a better supported solution opens up for Eclipse. Or use Netbeans. Or use command line tools. Be a true engineer - adapt to the situation and get the job done.

Vapor Plugin

Hello all ..
Can anyone direct me please to where I can get the Plugin "Vapor" or "Vapor Across" .. for
FCP 6 .. I did have it, but looks like I deleted it .. Have been searching to no end ..
Hope someone knows...
Thanks
Mark

It seems to have been discontinued. Someone asked a similar question a couple of days ago.
EDIT. Here's the thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10286479&#10286479
and a link to the alternative plugin that I proposed:
Flashframe by Too Much Too Soon. [Free Download|http://www.mattias.nu/plugins>

Ideas or help needed for a simple, robust pluggable framework

Hi all,
Having written a fairly decent plugin engine, similar in concept to the Eclipse plugin engine, although at a more generic scale, I am looking for any possible ideas for a Java Swing framework that is built around the engine, with the concept of using a framework that is built on mostly plugins. My engine handles, or will soon handle, a number of features to make the engine robust enough, yet still easy enough, to use for just about any purpose.
The engine is pretty simple, although with a bit more work I feel will be overall a pretty robust and powerful plugin engine. Each plugin is made up of one or more "services". A plugin is a .jar file that contains a plugin-conf.xml config file, the classes that implement the Service interface, and any supporting classes. The "plugin" is really the package of one or more services and supporting classes. The engine will handle the ability to work with expanded dir structures as well, so that the build process doesn't have to create .jar files on every build of a plugin. The engine has built in support to load, unload and reload a plugin at runtime. This helps during development by allowing auto-reload of a plugin service without having to restart the app. The engine has the ability to "watch" URLs in a separate thread (still working on this), and at given intervals if a change occurs to any plugin, that plugin is reloaded. This is configurable on a per plugin basis in the config file.
Every plugin .jar file gets its own classloader instance. Because of the nature of a framework that may rely heavily on plugins, it will be very common to have plugin dependencies, where a plugin service may rely on one or more other plugin services. The dependencies are configured in the plugin-conf.xml file, and the engine resolves these when the plugin is loaded, automatically. Once all plugins have been loaded, an "init" call is made that then goes and resolves all plugin service dependencies, setting up the behind the scenes work to make sure any service can use any other service it defines to depend on. Another area is plugin versions. There will no doubt be a time when some sort of application may have legacy plugins, but also have newer plugins. For example, an application built on a "core" set of plugins, may eventually update the core plugins with newer versions. The engine allows the "old" plugins to exist and work while new versions of the same plugins may be loaded and working at the same time. This allows older plugins that depend on the old set of core plugins to work, while newer plugins that depend on the new core plugins may work also. Any plugin may depend on one or more services specified by specific versions, or a range of versions.
Plugin services can define to be created when first loaded, or lazy instantiated. Ideally, an application would opt for lazy instantiation until a plugin is needed. For example, a number of plugins may need to add menu items or buttons that would trigger its service. The plugin does not actually need to be created until the menu or button is clicked on. There is one BIG problem with how this engine works though. Unlike the Eclipse (and other) engines where the config file defines the menu item(s), buttons, etc in an xml sort of language, this engine is built for generic use, and therefore is not specific to menu items or buttons triggering a service instantiation. Therefore, a little "hack" is required. A specific plugin that is created when first loaded will be required to set up all the menu items for specific plugins, then handle the actionPerformed() call to instruct the engine to create the service. The next step would be for the plugin service to add its own handler to the specific menu item it depends on, and remove the "old" handler the startup plugin added to it to handle the initial click. Another thought just struck me though. Because the engine must use an XML parser to load every plugin-conf.xml file, it might be possible to "extend" the parsing routine, where by an extending class could be added to the engine to parse plugin-conf.xml files. First the plugin engines own routine would parse it. Then, the extending class could parse for any extra plugin-conf.xml info, such as menu item settings, and directly set up the menu items and handlers in this manner. I will probably include this ability directly in the engine soon anyway, so that nobody else has to do this, but this is one area I would appreciate some feedback on.
Anyway, so that is the jist of the engine. There is more to it under the hood, but that sums up a good part of it. Now, the pluggable framework, much like what the "shell" of eclipse, forte and so forth offer, is built around my engine to make it very easy to build Swing applications with a pluggable framework underneath. The idea is to package up a startup main class that is configurable, a number of useful plugins that other plugins could depend on, such as an Outlook layout, menuing, toolbars, drag/drop, history, undo/redo, macro record, open/save/search/find/replace dialogs, and so forth. This isn't just for an IDE though. The developer using the framework could deploy the basic app with the plugins of his/her choice, and add to it with his/her own plugins.
Soooo, after this long post, what I am getting at is if anyone would be interested in helping out with ideas, feedback, testing, core framework plugins, and so forth. At this time I am keeping the code closed, but will probably public domain it, open source it, or whatever. The finished framework should make it easy for anyone to quickly build useable applications, and if all goes well, I'd like to set up a site with a location for 3rd party plugins to be uploaded, for download, comments, etc. Being a web developer, I myself will probably work on some plugins for Web Services, web stress testing, and so forth. I have lots of ideas for useable plugins.
On that note, one application I am personally working on for my own use, is a simple yet possibly robust internet suite of apps. I want to incorporate FTP, Email, NewsGroup, and IRC/AOL IM/Yahoo IM/MSN IM/ICQ chat into a single app. Every aspect of it would be plugins. Frankly, I hate outlook, Eudora is alright, but I want to do some things with the email app. I also want a single IM/Chat app that can talk with all protocols (not an easy task, take a look at GAIM). Newsgroups are handy to work with for developers and others of interest, as is FTP. But even more so, being able to have all in one big application framework that allows them to share data between each other, work with one another, and so forth is appealing to me, and being written in Java it could potentially work on many platforms, giving some platforms a possible nice set of internet apps to use. Being able to send an email to a mailing list AND have it posted to specific newsgroups at the same time without having to copy/paste, open up separate applications and so forth has appeal. Directly emailing from any chat or newsgroup link without another app starting up is a little faster as well. Those are just "small" things that could prove to be very kewl in a complete internet app. Adding a web browser, well, I don't think I want to go that route. But if there is already a decent Java built web browser, it shouldn't be too hard to add it as a plugin.
So, if anyone is interested, by all means, drop a post to this thread, let me know of interest, feedback, ideas, point out bad things, and so forth. I appreciate all forms of communication.
Thanks.

Yes I do. I am using it now with my work related project.
I am in fact reworking the engine a bit now. I want to incorporate the notion of services (like OSGi) where by a plugin can register services. These services are "global" in scope, meaning any plugin may request the use of a service. However, services, unlike plugins, are not guaranteed to be available. Therefore, plugins using services must be coded to properly handle this possibility. As an example, imagine an email application using my engine. One plugin may provide the email gateway, including the javamail .jar library and provide the email service. Other plugins, such as the one that provides the functionality for the SEND button, would "use" this service. At runtime, when the send button was pressed it would ask the engine for the email service. If available, off goes the email. If not, it could pop up a dialog indicating some sort of message that the email service is not available.
I am at the VERY beginning stages in this direction so I'd love to have ideas, thoughts, suggestions as to how this might be implemented. I do believe though that it will provide for a more powerful engine. The nice thing is, while the engine will support static runtime plugins, it will also support dynamic services that can come and go during the runtime. The key is that plugins using services do not maintain references to them, but instead query the engine each time a plugin needs to use a service.
Static plugins are those that are guaranteed to be available or if not, any dependent plugin is not allowed to load. That is, if A depends on B and B is not able to be loaded, A is unloaded as well as it can't perform its job without B; it depends on B in some manner to complete its function. Imagine a plugin adding an option panel to the Preferences page only that the Preferences plugin is not loaded. It just can't work. However, with some work, there could be variations on this. That is, a plugin may provide a menu item as well as a preferences page. If the preference plugin is not available, then the plugin may simply still work via the menu item, but have no preferences panel available. This should be configurable via the plugin-conf.xml config file. However, as I have it now, using extension points and extensions like Eclipse does, it is also possible that if the Preferences plugin isn't loaded, it wont look for ANY extensions extending its extensino point, and therefore the plugins could all still run but there would simply be no preferences page. So, I am not entirely sure yet which way is best for this to work.
My engine, as it stands now, allows for separate classloader plugin loading, it automatically resolves all dependencies by creating the plugin registry each time the engine is started up. To speed up plugin loading, it maintains a plugins.xml file in the root dir that keeps track of each plugin that was loaded and its last timestamp. Plugins can be open directory files or jarred up into .PAR files (think .WAR or .EAR files). The engine can find .par or open-dir plugins in multiple locations (including URL locations for direct .par files). When it finds a .par file, it first decompresses the .par file to a plugin work directory. Every plugin must have a plugin-conf.xml in its root dir, and either a /classes dir where compiled classes are, or a .jar file in the root path of the plugin, where the /classes dir superscedes the .jar file. Alternatively, anything in a /lib dir is automatically picked up as part of the plugin classpath. So a plugin that wraps the xerces.jar file can simply place the xerces.jar in the /lib dir and automatically present the xerces library to all dependent plugins (which can import the xerces classes but not need to distribute the xerces.jar file if a plugin they depend on has it in its /lib dir). The "parent lookup" process goes only one parent level deep. That is, if plugin A depends on a class in a /lib/*.jar file in plugin B, then the engine will resolve the class (through delegation) of plugin B. But if A depends on B, B depends on C where plugin C's /lib/*.jar file contains a class A is looking to use, this will not work and A will throw a ClassNotFoundException. In other words, the parent lookup only goes as far as the classpath of all dependent plugins, not up the chain of all dependent plugins. Eclipse allows each plugin to "export" various classes, or packages, or entire .jar files and the lookup can go all the way up the chain if need be. I haven't yet found a big reason for supporting this, so I am not too concerned with that at this point. The engine does support reloadable plugins although I have not yet implemented it. Because each plugin information object is stored in a Map keyed on the plugins GUID (found in the plugin-conf.xml file), it is easy enough to load a new plugin (since they get their own classloader) and replace the object at the GUID key and now have a reloaded plugin. The harder part is properly notifying all dependent plugins of the reload and what to do with them. Therefore I have not quite yet implemented this feature although the first step can easily be done, so long as nobody minds the "remnants" of older plugins laying around and possibly not being garbage collected.
All of this works now, and I am using it. I do NOT have a generic UI framework just yet. I am working on that now. Eclipse has a very nice feature in that every plugin.xml file builds up the UI without any plugin code ever being created or ran. I am working on something like that now, although I am focussed more on the aspect of the engine at this point.
Two things keep me going. First, the shear fun of working on this and seeing it succeed, even if a little bit. Second, while I love the idea of Eclipse, OSGi and other engines, so far I have yet to find one that is very easy to write plugins for, is very small, and is "generic" enough for any use. Some may argue JBoss core, at 29K can do this. I don't know if it can. It is built around JMX and I don't know that I agree JMX is the "ultimate" core plugin engine for all types of apps. Not that mine is either, but I'd like to see what I am working on become that if possible. Currently, with an xml parser (www.xmlpull.org) added as part of the code, my engine is about 40K with debug info, maybe about 28K without. I expect it to grow a bit more with services, reloadable/unloadable code, and some other stuff. However, I am thinking it will still be around 50K in size and in my opinion, with an xml read/write parser (very fast one at that), extension/extensino points, services, dependencies, multiple versions of plugins (soon), load/unload/reload capabilities, .par management (unjar into work dir, download .par files from urls, etc) and open directory capabilities, inidividual classloaders, automatic dependency resolution, dynamic dependency resolution and possibly even more, I think what my engine offers (and will offer) is pretty cool in my book.
None the less, there is always room for improvement. One of the things I pride myself on is using as little code and keeping the code neat and easily readable, not to mention as non-archaic as possible, makes for an easily maintainable project.
So, having said all that, YES, the engine can be used as is right now. It does not reload plugins, but you can dynamically load plugins, handle dependency resolution, have a very fast xml read/write parser at your disposal for any plugin, and for the most part easily write plugins. That is all possible now. I should put the engine I have now up on my generic-plugin-engine sourceforge project one of these days, perhaps soon I will do that! While I have no problem handing out the code, I am currently the only committer and I don't have it loaded into CVS at this point. I would like to do so very soon.
So, if you are interested, by all means, let me know and I'll be happy to send you what I have, and love to have more help on the next version of this.

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