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Note: Plug-ins not available on all platforms, currently plug-ins are only supported on Linux and Solaris/Sun.

Installing Plug-Ins

There are two ways to install plug-ins:

  1. From source (just after compiling it)
  2. From binary package
In either case the goal is simple, the plug-in binary needs to be placed in either /usr/share/vertex/plugins/ or in $HOME/.vertex/plugins/ (note these paths may differ if you have set up the Locations differently in Vertex's preferences). Installing in the global directory makes the plug-in available to all users on your computer when they run Vertex, if you only wish to use the plug-in for yourself then just install it in your local directory.

Most binary packages will place the plug-in globally in /usr/share/vertex/plugins/ when you install using your distribution's package installer (ie rpm for Redhat Linux).

Installing from source requires that you first compile the plug-in (usually by typing make in the source's directory and then afterwards (if no errors occured during compiling), type make install.

In case something goes wrong or there is no automatic installation, just manually move the binary to one of the above directories. For example:

Once installed, do not edit the plugins.ini file. It will be updated automatically when you run Vertex, if you are currently running Vertex then you should save any modified data and restart it. Once you start Vertex the plug-in will be scanned but marked as disabled, you will need to go to Edit->Preferences->Plug-Ins to enable it (this is for security reasons).

If for some reason Vertex crashes on startup or a plug-in was configured improperly and cannot be fixed, just remove the plugins.ini file instead of removing the actual plug-in binaries.

Setting Up Plug-Ins

Vertex allows the user to set a few custom parameters for their plug-ins, see Edit->Preferences->Plug-Ins for a list of installed plug-ins and options for them.

Most plug-ins will run just fine without any special options/parameters, just make sure that you Enable it (selected the Plug-In and click on the Enable/Disable button). Note that any options/parameters set for a plug-in is stored in the $HOME/.vertex/plugins.ini file.

You should Disable any plug-ins that you don't plan on using often, this will reduce the risk of crashes and improve performance.

Making Your Own Plug-Ins

To make your own Plug-Ins you will need some basic background in:

To get started, you should first visit the Vertex web page http://wolfpack.twu.net/Vertex/ and download the Vertex Plug-Ins development package (note that it does not have any dependencies other than that you have Vertex installed).

The Vertex Plug-Ins development package comes with a few demos and all the header files that you need to #include plus coding procedure and compiling instructions.

There are no libraries that you need to link to, not even libv3d as Vertex provides all libv3d facilities for your plug-in (see the v3d*.h files from the Vertex Plug-Ins development package).


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