Making plugins first-class citizens

[Ron]

I agree that the plugins should have their own tab on the main display, sadly this is not do-able in the current plugin structure. But I have been thinking about implementing this for Girder 4.0.

-Ron

[herbyderby]

I've just gotten into Girder recently and plan on developing some plugins soon, but have some (possibly naive) suggestions on the current plugin architecture.

What I am wondering is if each of the existing tabs could become their own plug-in? Any additional plugins would also appear as tabs, and their settings would appear in the body of the tab frame.

In addition to being IMHO slicker, it would also allow a user to remove/update/replace any of the "core plugins" independently of the core Girder app.

To carry the idea further, I think there should be a similar tab section on top, for input plugins (i.e. one tab per input device). The settings box that is currently accessible via Edit->Settings would go into the tab area.

I'm sure this would require a lot of work, and wouldn't appear until 4.0 if ever. Feel free to tell me I'm crazy!

Thanks,
Chris