On 8 June 2013 20:31, Roger Booth <rbooth@kabooth.com> wrote:
On 06/08/2013 03:02 AM, Frank Lanitz wrote:
On Sat, 08 Jun 2013 02:54:38 -0700
Roger Booth <rbooth@kabooth.com> wrote:


One thing I could ask for is a reference in the docs to where I can
find the correspondence between api and abi. Maybe thats the wrong
question, but anyway, how do i know which abi version I need? This is
in regards to PLUGIN_VERSION_CHECK(xxx)

A lot of functions have a note at Geany's API documentation, since
which version of Geany they are avaialble. E.g. Since: 0.16 at
utils_str_casecmp().
At http://wiki.geany.org/plugins/development/api-versions you can find
also the connection between API and ABI as well as the corresponding
Geany version.

Cheers, 
Frank



_______________________________________________
Devel mailing list
Devel@lists.geany.org
https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devel
I guess what I was asking for was a note in the docs that talk about writing plugins, and especially in the docs about PLUGIN_VERSION_CHECK() that points to where the programmer can read up on the connection between api and abi. Or at least how the programmer can find out the number.

Its great that you tell me here, and I know that somewhere in my mail history I have the info as well, but wouldn't it be better to put the info at the location where it helps the the programmer that is about to add a PLUGIN_VERSION_CHECK() to a plugin? That was an issue for me, and adding the references to the location where I was looking would have helped me.

But beyond that, let me understand. What I do when writing a plugin is I keep track of the least value of x.yy in "Since: x.yy" for every function I use from the Geany API. Then I look at the URL you listed to find x.yy and cross reference it to an abi number. And that abi number is the number I plug in to the PLUGIN_VERSION_CHECK() macro. Is that how this works? If that is so, again, maybe it would be nice to document the manual procedure programmers should follow.

It might be just a typo on your part, but it is the biggest A*P*I number you get from the table that you plug into the version check.  You don't do anything with the ABI number, its automatic.

Or to be more realistic, plug in the API number of the geany you are developing your plugin against. If you are using a function that is too new for the Geany you are using you will get a compilation error. So simply use the oldest version of Geany you want the plugin to work for and sit back and let the compiler take the strain :)

If you develop with a new version of Geany, then only when you are *sure* your plugin is finished should you consider looking for the oldest version of API that will work, therefore defining the oldest version of Geany that will work.  But due to the unfortunate changes of ABI that have happened every few versions, people will have to compile your plugin themselves to use older Geany versions, so your audience is narrowed significantly (those who use an older Geany but are willing to compile plugins).  It is not possible to use a precompiled plugin with a version of Geany that has a different ABI, even if the API is ok.


Your initial post in this thread asked


    Is there something that describes how to go about adding a plugin to geany-plugins?

It sounded to me like you wanted to know about issues folks had writing plugins. Well, I'm listing issues I have had writing Geany plugins.

Actually I wanted to know how to add them to the g-p build system, rather than just plugins in general, since I havn't done anything g-p before :) 

Since various people claim its just copying the examples in the docs I'll see tomorrow :)

But thanks for the feedback that it isn't clear how best to use the API/ABI versions, thats the sort of info the experts need if they are to be able to improve the docs.

Cheers
Lex

_______________________________________________
Devel mailing list
Devel@lists.geany.org
https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devel