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| <h1>Plug-in</h1> |
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| <p>A <strong>plug-in</strong> is used to group your code into a modular, extendable and sharable unit.</p> |
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| <p>Plug-ins are <em>modular</em> as each plug-in contains some portion of code. The plug-in specifies other plug-ins (or java packages) it requires to be available to run and it also specifies the set of java packages it provides. An Eclipse based program or <a href="product.htm">product</a> will contain multiple plug-ins, which can be added, replaced or removed to alter the functionality of the program.</p> |
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| <p>Plug-ins are <em>extendable</em> using <a href="extension.htm">extensions and extension points</a>. A plug-in can provide one or more extension points so other plug-ins can add to the functionality of the plug-in. A plug-in may also provide extensions to connect to other plug-ins.</p> |
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| <p>Plug-ins are <em>sharable</em>. A plug-in can be exported as a directory or as a jar which can be added to other applications. Plug-ins can be grouped into <a href="feature.htm">features</a> which can be distributed and installed into applications.</p> |
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| <p>Eclipse plug-ins are based on OSGi bundles. OSGi is used to manage the plug-ins in an Eclipse application. A plug-in must contain a manifest file with valid OSGi headers for plug-in name and version. Extensions and extension points functionality added by Eclipse in addition to OSGi. To use extensions you must provide a plugin.xml file. PDE provides a full featured <a href="../guide/tools/project_wizards/new_plugin_project.htm">project</a> and <a href="../guide/tools/editors/manifest_editor/editor.htm">editor</a> for creating and editing these files.</p> |
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| <p>Eclipse plug-ins can also be packaged as a Java modular project ( Java 9 or later).</p> |
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| <h3 class="related">Related references</h3> |
| <a href="../guide/tools/editors/manifest_editor/editor.htm">Plug-in Editor</a><br> |
| <a href="../guide/tools/project_wizards/new_plugin_project.htm">New Plug-in Project</a> |
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| <h3 class="related">Related concepts</h3> |
| <a href="fragment.htm">Fragment</a><br> |
| <a href="feature.htm">Feature</a><br> |
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