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What is a Plug-in?

A plug-in for MDPlot is a library of functions that adds its own features to the program. You write your plug-in as a C/C++ application using a set of conventions that are covered in the Applications Programming Interface User Guide.

Overview of a Plug-in...

A plug-in is loaded by MDPlot at run-time. Once loaded, communication between the plug-in and the API is by passing messages. One of the plug-in's member functions serves as the main entry point, much as the main( ) function serves to identify a normal C application's entry point, and it is to this function that the API directs all of its messages.

Function Suites...

Your plug-in interacts with MDPlot using methods built into the API. These methods are organized into suites of topically related functions:

Basic Suite - Initialization and basic message passing functions.

File Suite - Methods for import and export of data.

Menu Suite - Used to create and manage menu items and callbacks.

Graphics Suite - Functions for working with MDPlot graphics data.

Image Suite - Tools for reading, writing and processing image data.

Contents of the SDK...

The SDK is supplied as a Microsoft Install file (.msi) that loads a directory structure onto your hard drive. The package contains all of the files needed to develop and compile a plug-in, including:

C language header files and source code.

Debugging versions of the API libraries.

Template code, which you elaborate to develop your own plug-in.

Sample plug-in source code.

The Applications Programming Interface User Guide, which is a comprehensive manual that covers plug-in concepts, writing a plug-in for MDPlot and a complete description of the function calls available in the API.