XBMC should support a plugin architecture

[san9jay]

im not sure if the current xbmc code allows this but the fact that xbmc can load and unload code to play different media formats suggests to me that it already has the makings of a media framework.

what i would like to see is the ability for all media support/add on features to be built as a plugin to xbmc. that is xbmc core provides the framework for registering a plugin and invoking the plugin either on a menu selection or on opening a file format or at startup based on configuration parameters. this would require a clearly defined api that devleopers could program to.

this way the core xbmc could remain relatively stable and developers (non core xbmc developers included) could build plugins to handle the various file formats and add on features that people want.

[Gamester17]

xmms has very nice plugin function, maybe could someone could base code upon that?

[manekineko]

you mean xbmc doesn't support plugins?

what's "dynamic loader for multiple cores/engines" mean then?

if xbmc doesn't support plugins that seems like it should be the number one priority to me. it's quite apparent just reading this forum that there are a thousand different directions people want xbmc/xbmp to go in, and the core developers can only go in one direction at a time. i don't know how many times on xbmp's forums we saw requests for things like web browser or email checker or whatever. this obviously isn't the direction the developers or the majority of the users want to go in, but it would be nice if for every pet feature suggestion people have, there were a well-documented plugin system that would allow either them or other interested people to easily code the feature themself.

also, the xbox's memory is quite limited, it'd be nice if you could custom tailor just which features you chose to include or not include based on whether or not you use them. i bet a lot of people never use one of the core categories, like apps, movies, or tvguide. if those were recoded as plugins, then people could just choose what they do or don't want to load.

unfortuantely, if xbmc is already this far along and this design decision hasn't been made, it's probably not going to happen huh?

[Frodo]

pfff, 1 more time
xbmc supports multiple decoder engines
at the moment mplayer is the first engine for xbmc,
but the architecture/design can handle others as well
for example we want to port xine also so you can choose
between the 2 based on filenames, file extensions,.....

but no we dont have a general winamp/xmms style plugin system
why not? because the xbox doesnt support dynamic dll loading from the box.
this may seem like a small thing for you, but i assure you its not. until somebody writes a complete functional and good dll loader you wont see a plugin system.

yes there's a dlloader in xbmc which loads the mplayer.dll
but this is not a generic and full functional dll loader.
its only supports 1 dll at the time.
if someone wants to extends this for multiple dlls, then that would b great. cause only then we can have a true plugin system



frodo