Upgrade CS3 custom plugins to work with CS5

Question

Hello everyone,
I have several InDesign plugins developed with CS3 SDK, and now we'd want to make them work with CS5.
As the first step, I'd want to get some general idea regarding how large the scope of effort it would require.
So I'm wondering if anyone knows whether we have any tools help with such upgrades. Or if anyone could help pointing me at some instructions that would be great.
Thanks a ton!
-Jeff

Answer 1

Hi Jeff,
You could look into the programming guide for a complete reference into what all are the changes you need to make into your plugin for porting into CS5.
But i will mention some main points that hopefully will get you started.
1. You need to seperate your plugin into two plugins that i.e. model and UI plugins. For that what i suggest is consider placing things like persistent interfaces and commands, maybe selection suites and the same into the model plugin and the rest into UI plugin.
2. You could start by not linking against the WidgetBin.lib on the Windows proj and not using the "IndesignModelUI.framework" in the MAC project. The files giving compilation error would be a potential target to move to the UI plugin.
3. Next is when you  have decided what all things are to be present in the model plugin, then use the CS5 SDK to compile this project, you will probably get some compilation errors which you can fix with the help of the Indesign SDK help.
4. Once the model plugin is compiled you can place all the other files and features from the original plugin not included in the model plugin into a new plugin(UI). This project will link against the WidgetBin.lib on the Windows proj and the "IndesignModelUI.framework" in the MAC project.
5. Once the UI plugin is ready and then you have made the appropriate API changes, you still might have some linking and compilation errors because of the code moved into the model plugin. For this you need to make a facade generally used for communication btw the model and UI plugin. Place all the functions of the model plugin that the UI plugin uses in the facade and replace the call of these function appropriately in the UI plugin.
6. Lastly you will have to make some changes in the project  settings as well for CS5 to copy the resource files with the plugin as well, please refer CS5 porting guide.
If you follow these steps, you would be able to load your CS3 plugin into CS5. And basically the effort in terms of porting the plugin mainly depends upon the quality of code to be ported. If the original code is written with good insight and using good practices of design patterns, porting is not a very time consuming task.
Hope this helps.