Please explain plugins

Posted by Thebloodsiren on Fri 12 Jul 2002 01:56 AM — 2 posts, 16,075 views.

#0
Call me stupid, and I havent been reading up on the whole plugin thing. But can someone explain a few things.

What are plugins? What are they used for?

Can someone give a very basic example. Say where it will implement an alias called food, that expands to eat foot.

Ta.
Canada #1
Plugins, for the most part, are a collection of aliases, triggers, timers, variables and scripts. A plugin does not have to include all of those elements. A plugin could concievably contain just one single alias or script routine.

Personally, I feel that tiny plugins with only one element in them are a bit of a waste of resources, since MUSHclient allocates a certain sized block of memory for each plugin.

A perfect example would be the "Code Cracker" aliases and script I just wrote in another thread. Two aliases, one trigger, and a few subroutines would make a nice small plugin, with just a few modifications to those elements (as they are now) to make them into their own stand-alone plugin.

(The other thread:)
http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/bbshowpost.php?bbsubject_id=1494&page=999999

Once the plugin is written, it becomes very easy to distribute. For example, if the above example of the Code Cracker stuff was turned into a plugin, then you could use the code yourself simply by downloading the file then selecting "File, Plugins, Add" from the MUSHclient menu. Viola! You could use the aliases and script, and you didn't really have to do any work!

This plugin idea is a new concept being incorporated into MUSHclient. As of this writing, only the latest Beta version of MUSHclient has the feature built in, and only a few select people have access to this new version. In other words, the "plugin" concept is still evolving, and may go through a few growing pains before it becomes a stable and viable method of sharing aliases/triggers/script between mud players who use this client.