How do I write plugins?

[Sunnzy]

Just wondering how would I go about writing plug-ins for Safari, iWork, iLife?

There are some minor things that I don't like or would like to have, so I thought I might implement it myself.

I have done quite a lot of Java and C at school, and heaps of other scripting language like shell script, python, php, etc... I have started looking at Objective-C and Xcode when I brought my Mac.

[robbieduncan]

Safari only supports plugins like Flash: i.e. plugins that render special content into a box in the page. It does not support extensions of the browser like FireFox.

iLife apps do not support generic plugins either. In fact the only iLife app I am aware of an official plugin API for is iTunes (visualisers only). I don't have iWork but I believe the same is true there.

There are ways round this via things like SIMBL (http://www.culater.net/software/SIMBL/SIMBL.php) but it'd be up to you to work out how to get your code to interact with the application.

[RedTomato]

iLife apps do not support generic plugins either. In fact the only iLife app I am aware of an official plugin API for is iTunes (visualisers only). I don't have iWork but I believe the same is true there.


FYI There's a large plugin industry around iMovie, with many many plugins for it.

[robbieduncan]

FYI There's a large plugin industry around iMovie, with many many plugins for it.

Forgot that one, you are, of course, correct.

[Sunnzy]

I don't know if you heard about these things... but I have downloaded a few plugins for Safari and iTunes...

Got SIA - Search in Address bar for Safari, it adds his extra option in the Preference Pane of Safari and lets you use the address bar as the search engine.

OGG for iTunes, it enables iTunes and Quicktime Player to playback ogg files.

Are these implemented using SIMBL (http://www.culater.net/software/SIMBL/SIMBL.php)?

[scottlinux]

Audio people always are interested in more plugins. Audio Units.