Writing plugins for our Tools projects

If you want to create your own plugin that is compatible with our tools you have to do the following steps. We will give an example with creating a plugin for the SolidReflector project.

1. Create new empty project library
2. Add new class named for example Plugin.cs
3. Add SampleTool.exe as reference in the newly created plugin project
4. Add the "using SampleTool" so that the IPlugin interface would be available for implementing
5. Make the public class Plugin a descendant of IPlugin and implement the IPlugin interface method Init so that the plugin will get initialized by the SolidReflector main application

The Init method is the place where an user has to put the initial logic of his custom plugin since this method gets called by the SolidReflector application

Docking the plugin in SolidReflector

There is a possibility for your plugin to be displayed in a cool way in the SolidReflector application and this is achieved using docking functionality. This allows your plugin to be easily minimized/maximized or docked in various places of the application window. To make your plugin dockable you should follow the steps:

1. Add reference MonoDevelop.Dock
2. Add using MonoDevelop.Components.Docking;
3. Add reference GTK since we will append a Gtk.Label component in the plugin