Xojo plugins in Xojo is no longer on the roadmap

Continuing the discussion from Diving into Xojo plugin development…:

Just noticed that developing Xojo plugins in Xojo is no longer on the roadmap :sob: :cry:
https://documentation.xojo.com/resources/roadmap.html#roadmap

Could that be the Libraries now?

Yes, that’s correct. They are now called Libraries on the Roadmap.

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please get this done sooner rather than later, really need it to share source between apps

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You already can share source between apps. Is there additional functionality you’re looking for?

Sharing multiple classes and the ability to add more without manually adding to every project

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You can only share using binary files, not files that can work with source control.

You can setup a folder structure for all your projects to sit within but there are bugs in the ide that make this cumbersome.

The ability to create libraries with XOJO which can be dynamically loaded during runtime by XOJO apps would provide tremendous advantage.

I’ve been using binary files quite well with source control. I migrated to xml files some years ago.

Jürg Otter posted a method to share code using the text format.

I have used source control, sharing code across a few projects, but you have to have it all within 1 source control project and have the all project files at the root level and references the files in child folders. On macOS you cannot drag those text files into a project with out the IDE screwing up the references (it adds …/…/…/…/…/…/…/…/…/ and breaks the reference). I had to write a small app to manage the projects to include the files and folders without it getting corrupted.

Its all “possible” but does not work well at all. Having “Class Librarys” as what xcode / visual studio have had for decades would allow shared source code, unit testing etc at a much more productive level. I dont need plugin style functionality just references to other projects.

Using binary files works in svn just fine, unless you want to review your changes and copy them to other projects.

Don’t wish too much into it.

You may get a new project type library, add some classes there, build it to a new file.
Drop that file into another project and use the class.

The file may be intermediate code for LLVM, so this would be like a static library. It may depend on the LLVM or framework version built with, so you may need to rebuild it for every Xojo version.

This would tick all my boxes

Sadly won’t be this time we could write visual components with design time capabilities. Seems that the final result may be like a glorified external encrypted module?

I’m personally hoping we see libraries released at XDC. Sadly I can no longer make it (personal commitments) so I’ll have to rely on @Kem_Tekinay to keep updated!

If libraries are released and are good, I might look at writing some sort of package manager for Xojo.

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Sadly, this time around, we’ll both be relying on someone to keep us updated.

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Bummer.

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I hoped we got some kind of really easy system where the library may be a like a module but in one plain text file (easy sharing and editing) that may be pre-compiled if wanted (faster building). Another project type, how is one suppose to debug this, build then import into another project and then debug? That would be too much steps.

We need ease of use something like a package system to import a library from a url (like git repo) and the library may be pre-compiled like a xojoscript can be now (not the library must not be xojoscript) or just plain text where everything is in ONE file.

Well this is a hope, much like we hoped workers would have been available on all platforms, it’s not.

Xojo could better keep us up to date, inorder to get something that’s really worth using. They would need more user input, so we get something we can all work with.

This is still too much work. For example to clean your project you can use a module and add classes to it. In plain text format, xojo somehow splits the module into separate class files. In the ide it shows nice but it’s cluttering the source repository. It also makes it harder to share the module as a single file and the biggest issue is the module cannot be a external item with classes inside. So it’s kinda useless.

Hmmm… the need for recompiling when we get a major version update is ok. Hope they will avoid the need for recompiling on every .x version.
What comes up in my mind is making a tool for (re)compiling all library-projects within a directory-structure at once.

I read it as being similar to the plugin cache, which would mean yes, recompile with every new Xojo version. But let’s see. Would be a step forward in any case.