Writing extensions

Albert can be extended by writing native C++/Qt plugins or Python plugins. A quick comparison:

• Native plugins:
  • Performance and power of C++.
  • Access to Qt and its eventloop.
  • Dynamic config widgets.
• Python plugins:
  • Simplicity of Python.
  • Rapid prototyping.
  • Easy to distribute/share.
  • Only a subset of the internal API.

General considerations and best practices

How to version plugins

If it has a public API major.minor.patch else minor.patch. Increase major if the API breaks. Increase minor if the API got some backward compatible additions or the user experiences noticeable changes. In all other cases increase patch.

Avoiding name conflicts of extension identifiers

If your plugin provides multiple extensions it’s a good idea to prepend the plugin id to the extension id to avoid name conflicts of extensions, e.g. files.root_browser. The root extension is fine to match the plugin id.