
ok let's come to the question : Would it be possible to 'execute' an external binary on the active document?
That is most definitely the plan! It is cool to have a user request it as much as we say: "users would like this" :) Right now we are working out the details, Bryce and I hope to have something very solid done this weekend.
I was thinking more precisely about that and 2 questions came in my mind :
Would it be possible to define sub-menus in the .inkmode files ? exemples : EFFECTS (native inkscape menu) |- dropshadow (plug-in 1 defined as dropshadow) |- roundhole (plug-in 2 defined as roudhole) |- specials |- area (plug-in 3 defined as specials/area ) |- center (plug-in 4 defined as specials/center ) |- transform... (plug-in 5 defined as transform)
that would permit easily to categorize the effects by the persons who write thoses plugs-in. If the numbers of plugs-in become important it would really help. And that would permit hackers-users to personnalise differently (manualy edditing the .inkmodes files) the menus of effects (or whatever it's name).
the second question : would not it be a good idea to collected a possible error message from the plug-in. if everything went fine the pug-in return the svg-string(maybe parsed by inkscape in order to not change the 'z' position of the path if it was sent 2 or more elements not from the same group) if something went wrong the plug-in could sent a string like : <error type="attention">You need at least 2 elements to do that</error> or <error type="critical">You need to have perl:svg to proceed that transformation</error>
That could be a good thing to handle some error-messages from the plug-in.
hervé