[FR-devel] FreeRIDE startup

[Horacio Lopez]

I am creating a plug-in for I18N, and I am testing on

both  Linux and Windows.

I am running exactly the same program, still,

the initialization order of the plug-ins is different.

 

This is because the load_plugins method

iterates the directory entries without sorting

them in any particular order.

 

Just to let people know they shouldn't

always rely on the start-up order in a particular

system, it may not necesarily always follow

the same initialization order in other systems.

 

Now some comments on this:

Some plug-ins will be using the Language plug-in

for internationalization, and each one of them

will have to wait until Language loads.

Each plug-in coder will have to code his own

initialization method.

Would it make sense to store this synchronization

data in the plugin.xml files ?

say for example:

 

<plugin name="Test2_Plugin" version="1.0">

 

  <waitfor plugin="I18N_Lang" />  

 

  <startafter plugin="Test1_plugin" />

 

  <require>plugins/test2/test</require>
  <module>FreeRIDE::Plugins::Test2</module>
  <properties>plugins/test2/properties.xml</properties>
  <install>plugins/test2/installer</install>
  <uninstall>plugins/test2/uninstaller</uninstall>
</plugin>

 

Explanation:

The <waitfor> label waits for an initialization message

from the specified plug-in. That doesn't necesarily means

that plug-in has fully completed its initialization stage.

The <startafter> makes this plug-in to start its initialization

once the specified plug-in has fully completed its initialization.

(maybe it's not all that clear, but we can talk more about it

later if you find this feature to be useful)

 

This would help us avoid initialization mistakes

and duplication of code. Don't know if it's feasible, and

don't know if this makes things harder, just an idea.

 

If you like it, I will add it to the Wiki wishlists.

 

cheers,

                 vruz