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For other uses, see Plug in. A plugin (plug-in, addin, add-in, addon or add-on) is a computer program that interacts with a host application (a web browser or an email client, for example) to provide a certain, usually very specific, function "on demand". Applications support plugins for many reasons. Some of the main reasons include: enabling third-party developers to create capabilities to extend an application, to support features yet unforeseen, reducing the size of an application, and separating source code from an application because of incompatible software licenses. A plugin (or plug-in) is a computer program that can, or must, interact with another program to provide a certain, usually very specific, function. ...
A computer program is a collection of instructions that describe a task, or set of tasks, to be carried out by a computer. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
An example of a Web browser (Mozilla Firefox) A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, videos, music and other information typically located on a Web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. ...
An email client (or mail user agent [MUA]) is a computer program that is used to read and send e-mail. ...
In the video game industry, a third-party developer is a developer that is not directly tied to the primary product the consumer is using. ...
Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ...
A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ...
Examples of applications and their plugins include:
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
Pretty Good Privacy is a computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication. ...
In computer graphics, graphics software or image editing software is a program or collection of programs that enable a person to manipulate visual images on a computer. ...
“Photoshop†redirects here. ...
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Windows developed by Peter Pawlowski, a former freelance contractor for Nullsoft. ...
GStreamer is a multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject. ...
Quintessential Player (also called QCD) is a freeware, multi-format Media player developed by Paul Quinn since 1997, when it was known as Quintessential CD (thus, the QCD moniker that remains in use today). ...
Steinbergs Virtual Studio Technology and its acronym VST refer to an interface standard for connecting audio synthesizer and effect plugins to audio editors and hard-disk recording systems and also giving the plugins a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for easy manipulation. ...
Winamp is a proprietary media player written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of Time Warner. ...
XMMSs default appearance The X Multimedia System (XMMS) is a free audio player very similar to Winamp, that runs on many Unix-like operating systems. ...
A packet sniffer (also known as a network analyzer or protocol analyzer or, for particular types of networks, an Ethernet sniffer or wireless sniffer) is computer software or computer hardware that can intercept and log traffic passing over a digital network or part of a network. ...
OmniPeek is part of WildPackets Omni³ System. ...
A remote sensing application is a software application that processes remote sensing data. ...
An integrated development environment (IDE), also known as integrated design environment and integrated debugging environment, is a programming environment that has been packaged as an application program,that assists computer programmers in developing software. ...
Other listings of programming languages are: Categorical list of programming languages Generational list of programming languages Chronological list of programming languages Note: Esoteric programming languages have been moved to the separate List of esoteric programming languages. ...
Eclipse is an open source platform-independent software framework for delivering what the project calls rich-client applications, as opposed to thin client browser-based applications. ...
This article is about the text editor jEdit. ...
MonoDevelop is a popular, open source integrated development environment for the Linux platform, primarily targeted for the development of software that uses both the Mono and Microsoft . ...
A web browser is a software package that enables a user to display and interact with documents hosted by web servers. ...
Adobe Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both the Adobe Flash Player, and to the Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program. ...
QuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc. ...
Mechanism The host application provides services which the plugins can use, including a way for plugins to register themselves with the host application and a protocol by which data is exchanged with plugins. Plugins are dependent on these services provided by the host application and do not usually work by themselves. Conversely, the host application is independent of the plugins, making it possible for plugins to be added and updated dynamically without changes to the host application. Look up Protocol in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Open application programming interfaces (APIs) provide a standard interface, allowing third parties to create plugins that interact with the host application. A stable API allows third-party plugins to function as the original version changes and to extend the lifecycle of obsolete applications. The Adobe Photoshop and After Effects plugin APIs have become a standard and been adopted to some extent by competing applications. Other examples of such APIs include Audio Units and VST. API and Api redirect here. ...
AU Lab, a developer application included on Mac OS Xs installer CD Audio Units (AU) are a system-level plug-in architecture provided by Core Audio, a set of application programming interface services provided by Apple Computers Mac OS X operating system. ...
Steinbergs Virtual Studio Technology and its acronym VST refer to an interface standard for connecting audio synthesizer and effect plugins to audio editors and hard-disk recording systems and also giving the plugins a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for easy manipulation. ...
For example, a network switch may ship with an unoccupied but non-standard port to accommodate various optional physical layer connectors, while games and productivity applications often use plug-in architectures which allow original and third-party publishers to add functionality. Computer networks may be classified according to the network layer at which they operate according to some basic reference models that are considered to be standards in the industry such as the seven layer OSI reference model and the four layer Internet Protocol Suite model. ...
Manufacturers can use plug-ins to create vendor lock-in by limiting upgrade options to only those available from or endorsed by the original manufacturer. IBM's Micro Channel Architecture, technically superior to Industry Standard Architecture as a way to add components to IBM PCs, largely failed to gain wide support due to the difficulty in getting certification for third-party devices. The Microsoft Flight Simulator series is famous for its downloadable aircraft add-ons. In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, customer lock-in, lock-in is where a customer is dependent on a vendor for products and services and cannot move to another vendor without substantial switching costs, real and/or perceived. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
Plugins and Extensions Plugins are slightly different from extensions, which modify or add to existing functionality. The main difference is that plugins generally rely on the host application's user interface and have a well-defined boundary to their possible set of actions. Extensions generally have fewer restrictions on their actions, and may provide their own user interfaces. They sometimes are used to decrease the size of the host application and offer optional functions. Mozilla Firefox and related software use Add-on as an inclusive term for a category of augmentation modules that are subdivided into plugins, themes, search engines and a well-developed extension system which reduces the feature creep that plagued the Mozilla Application Suite. This article is about the extension mechanism. ...
The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ...
“Firefox†redirects here. ...
Mozilla Add-ons frontpage. ...
Mozilla Firefox showing several extensions and a custom theme See also: List of Firefox extensions Extensions are installable enhancements to the Mozilla Firefox or Mozilla web browsers, and add features to the application or allow existing features to be modified. ...
Microsoft Word with all features activated Creeping featurism, or creeping featuritis, is a phrase used to describe software which over-emphasizes new features to the detriment of other design goals, such as simplicity, compactness, stability, or bug reduction. ...
The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite, and code named Seamonkey) is a free, cross-platform internet suite, whose components include a web browser, an e-mail and news client, an HTML editor, and an IRC client. ...
History Plugins can be traced back as far as the mid 1970s, when the EDT text editor running on the Unisys VS/9 operating system using the Univac 90/60 series mainframe computer, provided the ability to run a program from the editor and to allow such program to access the editor buffer, allowing an edit session in memory to be accessed by an external program. The plugin program could make calls to the editor to have it perform text editing services upon the buffer that the editor shared with the plugin. This feature was used by the Waterloo Fortran compiler to allow interactive compilation of Fortran programs being edited by EDT. EDT was a text editor that was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for use on its PDP-11 series of computers, and later for its VAX/VMS series as well. ...
Notepad is the standard text editor for Microsoft Windows A text editor is a piece of computer software for editing plain text. ...
Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS), based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware[3], is a global provider of information technology services and solutions. ...
An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer. ...
The Univac 90/60 series computer was a mainframe class computer manufactured by Sperry Corporation as a competitor to the IBM System 360 series of mainframe computers. ...
For other uses, see Mainframe. ...
The University of Waterloo (also referred to as UW, UWaterloo, or Waterloo) is a medium-sized research-intensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. ...
A diagram of the operation of a typical multi-language, multi-target compiler. ...
Fortran (previously FORTRAN[1]) is a general-purpose[2], procedural,[3] imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing. ...
Perhaps the first software applications on PCs to include a plugin function were HyperCard and QuarkXPress on the Macintosh, both released in 1987. In 1988, Silicon Beach Software included plugin functionality in Digital Darkroom and SuperPaint, and the term plug-in was coined by Ed Bomke. Currently, plugins are typically implemented as shared libraries that must be installed in a place prescribed by the host application. HyperCard supported a similar facility, but it was more common for the plugin code to be included in the HyperCard documents (called stacks) themselves. This way, the HyperCard stack became a self-contained application in its own right, which could be distributed as a single entity that could be run by the user without the need for additional installation steps. HyperCard was an application program from Apple Computer that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. ...
QuarkXPress is a page layout application for Mac OS X and Windows, produced by Quark, Inc. ...
The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. The Macintosh or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ...
Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ...
Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ...
Silicon Beach Software was an influential early developer of products for the Macintosh computer. ...
Digital Darkroom is a phrase used to describe all of the software and techniques used in digital photography that have replaced the old darkroom equivilents, such as enlarging, cropping, etc. ...
SuperPaint was a pioneering graphics program and framebuffer computer system developed by Richard Shoup at Xerox PARC. The system was first conceptualized in late 1972 and produced its first stable image in April 1973. ...
In computer science, a library is a collection of subprograms used to develop software. ...
Plugin frameworks The following plugin frameworks are organized by programming language and can be used by software developers to add plugin capability their application. A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ...
C++ - FxEngine Framework - a dataflow processing Framework
- Qt PlugIns - part of TrollTech's Qt Framework
Delphi
Java - Java Plug-in Framework (JPF), a plugin mechanism adapted from Eclipse's plugin mechanism from its pre-OSGi era.
- [1] (RCP), platform for applications adapted from Eclipse , applications are written as plugins and may themself have further plugins
Eclipse is an open-source software framework written primarily in Java. ...
The OSGi Alliance (formerly known as the Open Services Gateway initiative - now an obsolete name) is an open standards organization founded in March 1999. ...
Eclipse is an open-source software framework written primarily in Java. ...
Python
.NET
Active Visic
See also Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ...
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ...
An applet is a software component that runs in the context of another program, for example a web browser. ...
Illustration of an application which may use libvorbisfile. ...
This article is about the extension mechanism. ...
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