New Plug-in Tools

[Boy]

Kate Moir mentioned in her introduction posts to P&GD 11 and XDP X11 that Xara is aiming to extend the drawing features of these programs through the new plug-in technology on which the Liquify tool and SmartShapes are based. I was experimenting with the liquify tool (I really like it) and reading about it in the help file. It gives some additional information about Plug-in Tools:

"The Liquify tools and SmartShapes use a new plug-in technology to provide ways to extend and enhance the drawing features of the program. It's our intention to publish a programming API that will allow third parties to extend Designer to add their own features, tools and SmartShapes. These are all written in the Javascript language. At time of writing the API is not ready to be released, but if you are a Javascript developer and are interested in using this in future, please send us a support ticket to register your interest and we will contact you when it's available."

I am curious as to what additional drawing tools and features could be developed with the technology and if anyone on these forums would be interested and capable to write such plugins. It is probably hard to say at this point because no programming API has been made available by Xara yet but as I am curious (and clueless as to what is required or possible), I raise the issue anyway.

[gwpriester]

All will be revealed. I have not idea of the time frame. But Xara has been thinking about this for a while.

[Boy]

I think this might be a smart move because many users have been complaining the past few years that Xara spends too much time on web features and too little on the drawing tools. This API may accelerate the development of such tools. One question I have is how difficult it will be to develop a drawing tool and how much one could charge for it.

[handrawn]

I really wish I had time for this, but I don't - 10 years ago maybe - but I wish it well, it's the way to go...

[mwenz]

Unless the plug-in archetecture supported compiled plug-ins there is no point in a retail scenario. Even if it did, I will likely give away any of my contributions.

As to the capabilities the system has, it is all going to depend on how greatly the Xara code exposure is. It's one thing to add simple primates but it another thing altogether to have full exposure to coordinates (pos, area of object and bounds, etc), primaries (circle, square/rectangle, etc.), and more.