tutorial for coding plug-ins in delphi

[r.amse.s]

hi,

is something like this available?

thanks!

[jsmorley]

hi,

is something like this available?

thanks!

There is not. The only supported languages for coding plugins are C++ and C#.

https://github.com/rainmeter/rainmeter-plugin-sdk

[r.amse.s]

but if i can generate a DLL in Delphi is this not enough to create a plugin?
is there something else special necessary for a plugin?

[jsmorley]

I don't want to discourage, but what we have is API/SDK code that provides the hooks into the Rainmeter system needed for C++ and C# plugins.

I don't doubt that a dll plugin that could be made to properly interface with Rainmeter could be done in other languages, but without the API interface I suspect the effort would be daunting at best.

In addition, there would be little guidance we could give other than to suggest that you tear apart the existing API code and either the C++ or C# sample code in order to see what is being done. Perhaps it can be carefully replicated using another tool, but I don't want to paint any kind of picture that it will be easy.

For coding skins in Rainmeter we start with the assumption that folks are both new to Rainmeter, and have no experience with any kind of coding / programming. That is why our documentation is so extensive and we so strongly encourage folks to help each other out here on the forums. It is also why Rainmeter itself it designed in a way that makes creating skins for it something that doesn't require "programming" as such.

However, when it comes to creating plugins for Rainmeter, the assumption is that the person is a pretty experienced C++ or C# programmer. The API/SDK is written to provide as easy an interface and as much work on "our end" as possible for that person and in one of those environments, but even then there is no "tutorial". It is just expected that anyone wanting to tackle a plugin is going to be able to get by with what is provided in the SDK. As for other languages, a person is really going to be "on their own", and to be honest the level of programming expertise needed is likely to be much higher.

I'm not the expert on this, and don't know a thing about Delphi. Others may want to weigh in with additional advice, but I just didn't want to leave you hanging.

[r.amse.s]

i see.
interesting is that the raimeter is quit popular but nothing usefull can be found on the net about Delphi and plugins for it. And Delphi is a really big community...
will take a look into this. I am sure that this is possible with not so mutch effort.

[poiru]

but if i can generate a DLL in Delphi is this not enough to create a plugin?
is there something else special necessary for a plugin?

No, nothing special is needed. A Rainmeter plugin simply exports a few functions with the cdecl calling convention and imports a few functions with the stdcall calling convention.

See RainmeterAPI.h for the C protypes of the functions to import (from Rainmeter.dll). For the prototypes of the functions to export, refer to the documentation.

I am not familiar with Delphi, but I understand that it supports compilation of 64-bit binaries these days, right?

[r.amse.s]

ok poiru, will give a try. thanks!
and yes 64bit is not a problem for delphi nowdays