[Geany-Devel] RFC: Proxy plugins

[Lex Trotman]

Hi Guys,

Some general observations, irrespective of the implementation.

1. There shall be only one plugin control GUI.  The users don't care
how a plugin is implemented, or what language its in, they just want
to use it.  Having to look in two places will often mean one group of
plugins is missed.  Thats also one of the complaints against the
current Geanypy implementation.

2. All current plugins shall continue to work for a considerable
period until any new mechanism is in place.  Re-compilation is
acceptable although maintaining ABI is preferable.  It has taken so
long to accumulate a set of fairly useful plugins that we can't afford
to try to force them to be re-built (quickly) to a new interface to
keep working.

3. Any new plugin system shall not require large amounts of
boilerplate to write a plugin, in any language.  The basic point of
this effort is to encourage plugins by making it easier.  Hiding
boilerplate under a part of the bindings is of course acceptable.

4. A full implementation is required before anything is added to
Geany, that includes bindings to all the Geany API for the existing
languages (C/C++/Vala/Python).  Finding unexpected difficulties with
the bindings is so likely (see Geanypy keybindings issues) that there
needs to be a clear demonstration that they can be addressed.

Support for autogeneration of the bindings would of course be the
cherry on the cake, but thats our issue not the plugin writers.

Cheers
Lex