Add a Plugins Feature

[mnealer]

This project has a lot of potential use, but the features wanted are going to be different for many users.

If there was a simple API system in place, then other coders can build additional features without them having to be part of the main build.

Simple examples would be the ability to apply pre-written themes to the application, or to use the tag system to examine a complete project to see if there are inconsistencies such as a character that is already dead being part of a conversation.

The Tagging rule checkers are something I would especially like, since the main application has a VERY good set of tags that can be used. Since these quantify what elements are used in what chapters and scenes, then its quite an easy job to add automatic checks against them.

However I think it would be better if such checks, additional themes etc could come from other users and not be part of the central application

[mnealer]

I'm happy to work on this feature myself, if your happy with that. Its the best writers app I've found and I would like to help out

[vkbo]

I've already given this some thought, and there are various tickets in the backlog that has similar implications. My focus has been on plugins for text processing tools. There have been requests for various such tools over the years, and I think they belong as plugins. Especially since some of them are language-specific, and some may have performance implications so should be opt-in or only active on request.

See #2633, #2291, #1969, #1960, #1870, #1547, #1345, #1045 and #712 for examples of features that may be suitable for plugins.

I've already refactored parts of the code to make these things possible. Spell checking has over time been moved to a new framework that can be extended to support any type of plugin that needs to highlight text. Next up is redesigning the bottom half of the main GUI area to support panels with tooling, merging the current features in the document viewer panel into it. I'm also working on a replacement for the current outline view that would also be plugin-friendly and will contain at least 2 or 3 views/tools when I'm done.

I think as a starting point, the plugins should be internal plugins. So kept in the current code base, but opt-in, and contributed by users. When this is stable, allowing third party plugins may be a sensible next step.

I'm not sure what specifically you mean with the tagging rules here. The tags and references system is deeply integrated into the core app, so making it user-defined is not trivial. Adding features on top of the system is a different matter though, and I've thought about various ways to expose the meta data for visualisation purposes.

On the theme part, I'm not sure what you mean. If it's just the colour theme, then this is already fully user-customisable and you can add your own themes in your local app data folder and novelWriter will allow you to select them. See https://novelwriter.io/docs/more/customise.html

[mnealer]

Hi

What I would like to do is just created some sort of SDK to allow plugins to be created. This would then allow for a library to become available for download and installing them, rather than having to go in and change config file

As for the tags, I was not referring to user defined tags, but instead making use of the tags you already have in place, so that a set of plugin could be created that would run tests on the text to see if they meet selected standards. This was just an idea.

I am more interested in the idea of the SDK and the ability to access a plugin library as a base, rather than write the plugins myself. I feel it would be a good way to allow users to contribute to the project without it effecting the core code and without it needing to be maintained by yourself.

I like the application very much, but I thought it would be a good idea if there was an ability to add extensions and changes without the need to alter the core, and without the need to be centrally maintained. Something like the Plugins for IDE's like Pycharm and vscode

[vkbo]

Ok, I see. I don't really have a lot of experience with designing plugin frameworks. I guess having a plugin directory with Python code, based on a set of base classes that novelWriter can hook into, would be the sensible approach. It would definitely need changes to the core of the app components it interacts with, but as I mentioned I've already started doing that because I want some of the featured mentioned to be load on demand.

I still think this can be done in two steps: First adding the framework for internal plugins, then when it's stable, add support for external. (This can of course be developed in parallel.)

As for your reference to config files, I'm not sure what you mean. If that was about the theme, then that's how themes are defined. They're just colour values. For other plugins, they'd need to be Python code.

If you're thinking an actual API boundary instead, then that's a design pattern I haven't considered.

On the point of tags, then I understand. Such plugins can be based on the existing Index class as the data source, and should be fairly easy to support. The index is also cached between sessions in an index.json file inside the project. So there's a lot of opportunities to process the data in various ways.

[mnealer]

Yes, your points are sort of covering the elements that I have been thinking of.

For the Novel Writer is a great base and when I look at other options, they contain lots of elements, layouts, and other stuff that I just don't like. With Plugins the App can be changed so that it meets the users requirements without having to change the core. This is the route the Jetbrains has taken in that Intelij is the base app and it allows for customizations for different users via plugins

If your happy with this concept, I am happy to take this onboard as a side project. I am currently in the middle of a novel, using NovelWriter, but I do have about 15+ years experience with Python coding. I would like to compartmentalize the code I add, as much as possible, thus not interfere with the current core, where possible. This might mean moving some elements into configs and out of the code, but I think for the most part, your code does that already

[vkbo]

So, are we talking different views to display meta data from the index then?

If so, I'm already working on redesigning the outline view here: https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/tree/outline-table

I have also considered whether this belongs in a separate app altogether. Especially since I'm working on a rich text version of novelWriter as a side project, so a combined visualisation app may be the better choice.