There were some excellent additions to the plug-in API with version 10 of Flare and this blog will touch on that in later posts. But I want to make a quick note about a change to the API that you may need to address if you built plug-ins for version 9 and are planning to use those in version 10.
In version 9, there was an ICustomToolstrip interface. Now there is an ICustomToolBar interface. This bothered me a little until I realized that although the change broke my version 9 plug-ins that used ICustomToolstrip, it eliminated a silly workaround I had to use to share code between buttons for custom toolstrips, now called custom toolbars and ribbon groups. Note that MadCap still refers to the classic UI as the Tool Strip (user) Interface.
Before there was AddToolStripButton(string, string, EventHandler). Now there is AddButton and it can use the same class that inherits ICommand as AddRibbonButton(string, ICommand, object, string, RibbonIconSize, string, string, string). This enables better code sharing for buttons on a toolbar and a ribbon group and eliminates the need for the EventHandler and silly path to share logic for the buttons that was necessary before. Dealing with toolbar buttons and buttons on ribbon groups is just a fact of life if you want to support both UI options in Flare.
In conclusion, I think a little bit of rework in existing plug-ins is a good thing in this case.
I’m not a programmer, but I’d like to use the BatchTopics DLL. Can you please let me know what tweaks are necessary to get it working for Flare 10?
Thanks.
Adjusting the DLL won’t work. The code it is compiled from is for version 9 and it references version 9 of the API. You can adjust the code in Visual Studio along the lines this blog post suggests and adjust the project to reference the version 10 DLL and compile a new DLL. But that is programming. The forthcoming book from XML Press that I have coauthored describes steps to create a plug-in for version 10 and explains the change to the API with similar detail to this post. There are also a couple of other posts about the plug-in API on this blog. Thanks for reading!
Thanks, Thomas. I opened the code in Visual Studio and with help from a colleague I was able to get it working for Flare 10.
I’m glad it worked out!
Vidya, do you mind sharing the revised v10 dll with me? I too am looking to test this, but unfortunately do not have Visual Studio.
Thanks!
Hi Thomas,
Sure. I can email it you. Please let me know your email ID.
Hi Vidya,
Please email to danhan85@gmail.com please and thank you!
Vidya – I’d like to try it also! coppercarla@gmail.com Thank you!
Vidya – I need the new code too – nitzan.gazit@hp.com. thanks!