DeleD Community Edition

chrisu · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 11:13 am Post subject: Better Plugin-Interface?

It's been already asked a few times. Trying to give that topic some prio-boost I just wanted to remind you guys that especially for a community-based software it's absolutely necessary to have a better plugin-system. That means an interface which should be much closer to DeleD as the actual one is. Imho, the best way is over DLLs that export the needed functions, that would keep flexibility. I'm not aware of Delphi but I am aware of a lot of other languages and would be happy to contribute one or two plugins to help DeleD grow as it's still my 3D-editor of choice.
Hoping that you guys don't get me wrong Confused

.

Cheers,
Chrisu.

Jeroen · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 1:10 pm Post subject:

I understand exactly what you mean. It has been mentioned a couple of times earlier too. The current system has earned its value, but we now need something better.

As DeleD is now open source, there's nothing stopping you from enhancing the current plugin system or introducing an entire new one. As I don't have any serious amount of free time available, I'm afraid I can only help with making suggestions and/or answering questions, but not with the actual coding.

I hope more developers will stand up and implement a better plugin system now. Smile

Note: not knowing Delphi shouldn't be a real problem. It is just as easy to read/understand as C# or Visual Basic.NET. You just need a Delphi compiler, which might be a problem...
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chrisu · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 1:25 pm Post subject:

Jeroen · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 3:54 pm Post subject:

chrisu · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 4:36 pm Post subject:

Jeroen · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 4:56 pm Post subject:

Excellent, thanks for that. Smile

I've make a sticky post about it here.
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chrisu · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 5:27 pm Post subject:

Good idea!
Glad I could help, already.
But I'm looking forward to eventually help more than that Wink

Cheers,
Chrisu.

chrisu · Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 8:08 pm Post subject:

@Jeroen: I'm really thinking about contributing to DeleD. I'm thinking about a multi-staged plugin-design (like an abstraction-layer) which would furthermore render the existing DeleD to something I would call as "core". So most of the enhancements should be doable by plugins (in one's language of choice). But besides this ideas I wonder what is actually being discussed regarding DeleD's future as a .NET-application? I would be more than annoying if I dive into the code now already with a planing-thread going on in my brain finally finding out that this was just for nothing. Sad

I'm really not sure about this specific discussion. Rolling Eyes

EDIT: I took a quick-look in the code and I have some sort of "feels like home" guts-feeling. I guess, yes, I could help you guys out. But I have to say that I'm not good in 3D-maths but I think I am when it comes to user-interfaces or lowlevel-system-stuff. In my real-life I'm a malware-analyst and -reverse-engineer. So, maybe not the worst skills when it comes to understanding some foreign software and code ... uhm, and I'm not talking about high-level-code, which is quite a charm for me, as I'm usually digging around directly in the .exe's if you know what I mean Wink

Actually I'm checking what it takes to make snapping and axis-restriction better. Looks pretty straight forward.

Cheers,
Chrisu.

chrisu · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:56 pm Post subject:

As I'm highly motivated now I would like to ask you guys what I'm allowed to do and what not.
Smile

If you ask me I would like to start right now to add all those things I'm actually missing: Better snapping (maybe smart snapping), perpendicular movement, customized object-origins, ...

Cheers,
Chrisu

Jeroen · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:19 pm Post subject:

AWM Mars · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:47 pm Post subject:

I believe in other posts, many of the developers have said what a great programme DeleD is, but the plug-in element has thwarted all but dog eared programmers, especially those with a Delphi compiler Smile

I believe DeleD could either, evolve expansively in features and functionality, or be aligned to another programme, maybe taking the modelling programme into the realms of scene management. That is a very rich arena for plug-ins.
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chrisu · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 2:46 pm Post subject:

Ok, firstly I will focus on the plugin-concept.
Does it make sense to enhance the interface partially? Or the full concept at once? Hm, guess It's more a question to the plugin-developers. What would you guys need at first so you can implement the plugins you ever wanted to??

Let's start a list here what you guys would expect from plugin-concept. So, functionality and so on. What is the biggest pain in the a** regarding the actual concept? Feel free to brainstorm!

Here my first throw of an idea - but, just an idea now: I'm thinking about an abstraction-DLL that acts like an API. This would be the "active"-way for the plugins. Besides this the existing "passive"-way will stay and will get furthermore enhanced. In that way the already existing plugins wouldn't get harmed.

Cheers,
Chrisu.

chrisu · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 11:24 pm Post subject:

Started with the modeling of the concept. Here's a little preview ...

EDIT: Overall-Concept is ready! Details are about to come soon.

Feel free to comment! Wink

Cheers,
Chrisu.

Jeroen · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:58 am Post subject:

Chronozphere and Fik, as experienced DeleD plugin builders, do you guys have comments?

A question that pops up is: how does the API communicate with DeleD?

DeleD maintains a set of data (primitives, selected primitives etc) per scene and the plugin API needs a way to access that data. Any thoughts on that?
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chrisu · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:20 pm Post subject:

Anyone comments? It's kinda hard to satisfy the needs of the ones developing plugins if noone of them contributes ideas or comments. Rolling Eyes