What Are Software Plug-ins?

Plug-in (Plug-in, also known as addin, add-in, addon or add-on, also known as plug-in) is a program written in accordance with a certain specification of the application program interface. It can only run under the system platform specified by the program (multiple platforms may be supported at the same time), and cannot run independently of the specified platform. Because the plug-in needs to call the function library or data provided by the original pure system. Many software have plug-ins, and there are countless kinds of plug-ins. For example, in IE, after installing the relevant plug-in, the WEB browser can directly call the plug-in program for processing specific types of files. The positioning of the plug-in is to develop a program that realizes functions that the original pure system platform and application software platform do not have. It can only run under the system platform specified by the program (may support multiple platforms at the same time), and cannot run independently of the specified platform. Because the plug-in needs to call the function library or data provided by the original pure system.

The emergence of the plug-in can be traced back to the mid-1970s. When the EDT text editor was running the UnisysVS / 9 operating system on the Univac 90/60 series mainframes, it provided a feature that the editor could run a program and allow this program to enter The editor's buffering allows external programs to refer to tasks being edited in memory. Plug-in programs allow the editor to perform text editing on a buffer that is shared between the editor and the plug-in. The Waterloo Fortran compiler uses these features to enable internal compilation of Fortran programs that can be edited with EDT. ^[1]

The application software provides various services that enable the plug-in to be applied, including providing a loading method so that the plug-in can be loaded into the application program and the network transmission protocol to perform data exchange with the plug-in. Plug-ins must rely on the application to perform their functions. Plug-ins alone cannot run normally. On the contrary, the application does not need to depend on the plug-in to run, so that the plug-in can be loaded on the application and dynamically updated without any changes to the application. ^[1]

Using plug-in technology can bring benefits in many aspects such as analysis, design, development, project planning, collaborative production, and product expansion:

(1) The structure is clear and easy to understand. As borrowed

Sea brush

Bloodstain brush

Streamline brush

Real hair brush

Pearl necklace brush

Circle vector brush

English brush

Eye brush

Dotted brush

Small flower brush

Decadent blot brush

Texture series pattern

Lace Fill Pattern

Cloth pattern

Dotted grid fill pattern

Cute flower fill pattern

Classical texture pattern

Cute fill pattern

Horizontal and vertical line fill pattern

Classical background pattern

Non-mainstream effects action

Dark effect action

Character whitening effect action

Character negative effect action

Face lightening effect action

Soft color effect action

Skin softening effect action

Black and white effect action

Soften landscape effects

Character cyan tone effect action ^[1]