Cross Platform Plugins?

[RickJ]

I just came across something called Korelib which claims to be "A cross-platform library for plugin-based applications".  Is this something that could be used to allow plugins to be portable?   

[Pumaman]

I tried to check it out but the downloads links were broken...

Anyway, as I understand it the plugins would still need to be compiled separately for each platform, thus it probably wouldn't offer any benefit.

[RickJ]

Is it possible now to write a cross platform plugin (TCP/IP client for example) and then compile for each platform?  Or must they be statically linked into the Linux and MAC runtimes thus making it necessary for the maintainers of those platforms to do the link/compile operations?

[Gilbert]

The MAC port does support plugins, well the ones included in the package itself at least. Since I don't have a MAC, I don't know if they're separate plugin modules bundled in the package (i.e. other people apart from Steve himself may be able to compile MAC ports of plugins) or just statically linked into the engine though. (I have a feeling that it's more possibly the latter...)

[Kweepa]

The mac plugins work exactly the same way as the pc plugins (as DLLs), so in theory anyone could compile them.
When (if) plugins are supported on Linux, that would be the easiest way to do it.

Unfortunately I doubt there's any way to cross-compile a mac plugin from a pc, so either the plugin writer would have to have a mac handy, or know someone who could do it for them (hi).

[EDIT]
Looking at the Korelib page (which has very few technical details) it appears to me that the idea is to have x86 code bundled in an OS independent plugin package (with I suppose callbacks to allocate memory etc). In that case it wouldn't be a lot of use for non-intel macs. I could be way off base there though. It also doesn't seem to have been updated since 2000...

[RickJ]

Unfortunately I doubt there's any way to cross-compile a mac plugin from a pc, so either the plugin writer would have to have a mac handy, or know someone who could do it for them (hi).

Althouh cross compilation is a bit of an issue it is not a show stopper.   It's not what I had in mind when I refered to needing the assistance of the runtime maintainers.   I was thinking along the lines of actually linking plugin or other glue code to the runtime to enable the plugin to work.

I could be way off base there though. It also doesn't seem to have been updated since 2000...

Arrrrgh!!! Sorry for not having picked up on that.  It looks like it's a dead project eh.   Oh well!!!