[Moved] My application and it’s plugins
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Hi there,
first of all, sorry for my bad english. I am new to Qt. I have read some tutorials and examples about Qt plugin framework. But I still do not get how to write plugin-heavy, modulary application. My main purpose is that I need all logic in plugins, main application has only GUI, plugin loading module and maybe some core functions also. The main point is application does not know anything about plugins, what functions they have. Just loadPlugin() and run() :-) Plugin's code is about to modify main app's GUI (adding menu items, changing widget's content, getting widget's content) and showing it's own widgets (which must be main app's window child).What is the best practice and design to make such application, how to write application API for plugins and how to put code, which "does all" to plugin? Thanks in advance :-)
[EDIT: moved to the brainstorm forum, Volker]
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Two years ago I asked myself the same question. My solution: getting the QtCreator source code and study it. QtCreator is exactly the kind of application you descibe in your post. It is very well designed and you can learn a lot from it - especially how to make a modular, plugin based application.
Another good example for such a plugin based framework is the "Generic Component Framework":http://www.vcreatelogic.com/products/gcf/. You can use this framework out of the box without the need to design your own.
Another great source for learning is the "Qtilities":http://www.qtilities.org/ library.