For U.S. Government End Users, Adobe agrees to comply … Chapter1, “Overview” describes the basic concepts behind Illustrator … to this guide: Getting Started with Adobe Illustrator …

Contents: Overview. What is a plug-in?, A brief history of the Adobe Illustrator API, Anatomy of a plug-in, Types of plug-ins, Action plug-ins, Plug-in file formats,Plug-in filters, Plug-in menu commands,Plug-in notifiers and timers, Plugin-group plug-ins,Plug-in tools, Combining multiple plug-in types,Where plug-ins live, What defines a plug-in?,PiPL resources, Plug-in management, Plug-in entry point and messages,Message actions: callers and selectors, Core message actions,Reload and unload messages,Start-up and shut-down messages, Notifiers, Handling callers and selectors, Message data, Illustrator API, Suites, Acquiring and releasing suites,Publishing…
What is a plug-in?. A plug-in is a library that extends or changes the behavior of Illustrator. On Windows, a plug-in is built as a DLL (dynamic-link library). On Macintosh, a plug-in is built as a bundle that contains a shared library. The plug-in architecture in Illustrator is very powerful. Plug-ins have access to Illustrator’s elegant vector, text, and raster engines, as well as Illustrator’s user interface. The API is a fundamental part of the application; in fact, most of Illustrator itself is implemented as plug-ins. You can create plug-ins that add new tools to the drawing, shading, and raster tools already in Illustrator. Plug-ins can turn Illustrator into a powerful CAD, cartographic, or other custom design application. Users can add or remove plug-ins to quickly and easily customize Illustrator to their needs. The Illustrator API offers several benefits to plug-in developers. Because Illustrator handles large application tasks like printing and saving files, you can concentrate on the implementation of your plug-in’s unique features. Plug-ins do not need to support undo or window updating; these are handled by the API and are invisible to the plug-in. This translates into shorter development cycles. Your plug-in also can take advantage of Adobe Dialog Manager (ADM), a cross-platform, user-interface API. Plug-ins that use ADM floating panels are completely integrated with Illustrator; the panels can be docked, undocked, and controlled as if they were built into Illustrator. A brief history of the Adobe Illustrator API. The Illustrator API first appeared in version 5.0. It supported one type of plug-in, filters. This was extended in Adobe Illustrator 5.5 to include file formats. The 5.x APIs displayed characteristics of many early API design efforts: the interface was monolithic, incorporating enough function to achieve its intended purpose, but not allowing for future expansion. A single callback function table was provided, with no means to extend or update it. Platform abstraction was minimal, and interaction with the user was restricted to modal. The Illustrator 6.0 API began addressing these limitations…

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