RE: plugin XML files

["Ian Lowe" <ian.lowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Here's a question -- can tools other than xPLHAL access that website
that hosts the vendor plugin files?

Just catching this one - absolutely! In the vision of multiple frontends
etc, all of these apps should be able to snag the plugins from the
server.

As John is posting the sample xml file up to the docs area, I'll see
about putting a page on the wiki which summarises the information needed
for developers to make it all happen.

> I ask because I'm putting the finishing touches on a new xPL API for
xPL4Java that will > make it trivial to parse (into a useful format) the
plugins file, with the hope of
> making it as easy as possible to use this info for "smart"
front ends.
And if it's OK, > I'd like to eventually even offer an option to fetch
plugin files for newly discovered
> vendors.

Will you be GPLing this code Gerry? I think that particulr functionality
would go down *very nicely* on .NET too :)

> I can easily see this placing a largish load on the identified server,


The server load should be pretty insignificant - the idea is that
people's installs would "dial in" and get the new xml files every
now
and then (like when the app is launched, or on a schedule) rather than
hit the server for every query.