Hey all, I'm trying to get my feet wet in plugin development and I was wondering if any of you can help me get started. I'm familiar with programming (C/C++) and I would appreciate any advice, links, and experience. Authoring a third party app for something like AC is something I've never got a full grasp of, let alone trying to start.


I want this to be a learning experience (for me as well as others who might be interested), so I'd really like to start small and work my way up from there.


So, just to get started, how would I go about outputting simple text into AC's chat window(s)?


(I'm sorry if this is a bit mundane, even posting what tools you use, i.e. IDE's, libraries, etc., will be helpful)

 

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go to http://www.decaldev.com/ and click on the Developers navigation link at the top and read ALL of those documents. (mainly the first 3)


the last 2 documents are "documentation" documents about the protocol and the D3DService. They are beneficial for learning how to do certain things within the Decal framework.


Most importantly (and I cannot stress this enough) use open source plugins as a base of learning. Read them, understand them, but DO NOT STEAL from them.. This includes the various "Plugin Frameworks" that are out there. Read it, study it, understand it. Until you can develop your own plugin framework, you are not ready to USE the plugin framework.


Copy-and-Paste coding is not good in the Decal scenario. It makes for crappy plugins by crappy developers who don't understand what they are doing. Decal isn't hard to master, but it takes time, dedication, and most importantly patience. If you get stuck, you can look (or post) on the acdev forums at http://forums.acdev.org , or ask in #ACDev.

Thanks for the reply. I was wondering if anyone could list some open source plugins that I can begin dissecting, preferably really really simple ones. I keep running into plugins that have been discontinued or are no longer being supported, and there are others like GoArrow that seem a bit complex (for starters).

 

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did you check the Decal Development forum?


I know people post stuff to there a lot. Maybe one of those contains some links to some Open Source stuff you can take a look at?


Or perhaps do a search through the "updated" plugins in ACHeaven to see what has been updated semi-recently and still works, then check if any of those are open source.


*shrug* I don't know of any off the top of my head, but I know they are out there.

Not sure what language you're looking for, but the source for hwacstats is available on his website.

 

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