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Managed Plugins for OpenCPN

Introduction

Alec Leamas is the main architect of the managed plugin system for OpenCPN. His guide is here.

The OpenCPN Developers Manualhas extensive documentation for managed plugins but the workflow described in the manual differs significantly from the process described in this guide.

A managed plugin will nearly always start as a 'legacy' plugin that installs locally on the developers machine. Alec has provided new scripts to build a managed version of the plugin for OpenCPN. The legacy plugin is the starting point and the purpose of this guide is to describe the steps involved. The aim is to simplify the workflow.

The reference plugin where the development work has been carried out is ShipDriver (Master branch). To show the process from the start another plugin is used as an illustration.

Alternative Workflow for Managed Plugins