Plugin Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

A plugin (or plug-in) is a computer program that can, or must, interact with another program to provide a certain, usually very specific, function. Typical examples are plugins to display specific graphic formats (e.g., SVG if the browser doesn´t include this format by default), to play multimedia files, to encrypt/decrypt email (e.g., PGP), or to filter images in graphic programs. The main program (a web browser or an email program, for example) provides a way for plugins to register themselves with the program, and a protocol by which data is exchanged with plugins.

Many professional software packages offer plugin APIs to developers, in order to increase the utility of the base product. Examples of these include:

• Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
• Digidesign Pro Tools
• Eclipse

Perhaps the first application to include a plug-in function was HyperCard on the Macintosh, which was released in 1987. These days, plug-ins are typically implemented as shared libraries which need to be installed in a standard place where the application will find them. HyperCard supported a similar facility, but it was more common for the plug-in code to be included in the HyperCard documents (called stacks) themselves. This way, the HyperCard stack became a self-contained application in its own right, that could be distributed as a single entity that could be run by the user without the need for additional installation steps.

Some small software vendors produce no stand-alone software at all, but plugins for a certain product. In order to make such a position more viable as a business, open APIs are provided to allow application vendors to change their product or go out of business without destroying the cottage industries that grow up around them. Probably the example of an industry built around such APIs is the Adobe Photoshop plug-in API, which has also been adopted to some extent by competing applications. Other examples of such APIs include Audio Units and VST.

• Address book
• Favorites
• Server address

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