how to write plugins?

[mvmacd]

hey there! I have rockbox on my Sansa E280, It's MUCH better than the OF. 
I do a little coding myself [mostly php,html,js,css,BASH], [I haven't really learned C yet but I sorta want to] and I was wondering how could I make a plugin?

Thanks

[P.S. Will .GIF ever be supported? I have a lot of gif files, converted to png, but they're about double size.]

[Domonoky]

You may want to look into the wiki, especially the HowtoWritePlugins wikipage should be helpful.

[mvmacd]

hmm.. I look at the page... but, ok, still I have no idea what kind of stuff I can tell the plugin to do.. and I'm still kinda fuzzy on how it all works out, but, so, do you think .GIF will be viewable in rockbox soon? thx

[Chronon]

If someone improves http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/3037 then it could be accepted.

[mvmacd]

oh cool. I actually downloaded that, and was hoping I could just compile it, then test it with my rockbox simulator. I tried,

Code: [Select]

$ ls
extras  viewbox.c
$ gcc viewbox.c

then it said a file was missing [a .h file] so then I searched my rockbox folder [that I got from svn, something I read on the  wiki or something], and then I would copy it to that directory, and then I'd try to compile again, then it said another file was missing, and so on and so forth. so how can I build this gifview? can I like cp it to the ~/rockbox/apps/plugins/ folder and then compile rockbox?

[saratoga]

oh cool. I actually downloaded that, and was hoping I could just compile it, then test it with my rockbox simulator. I tried,

Code: [Select]

$ ls
extras  viewbox.c
$ gcc viewbox.c

Rockbox is not a linux PC.  You cannot compile something for linux or cygwin and then just run it in rockbox.  You need to setup the dev tools and then compile a simulator with your plugin added to it.

You should really take a look at the HowtoWritePlugins page.  It explains this.

edit:

ok, still I have no idea what kind of stuff I can tell the plugin to do.

You can pretty much do anything you would expect to be able to do on an mp3 player.  Read buttons, disk IO, draw to screen, process things on a ~80-300MHz ARM or Coldfire processor, play audio, etc.

Edit2:  You might be interested to know that PNG compresses quite a bit better then GIF, so if your GIF files are smaller then your PNGs, you're probably doing something wrong

[mvmacd]

I ran

Code: [Select]

sudo ./tools/rockboxdev.sh

and it's taking forever. when it finishes, can I just copy the 'viewbox.c' and 'extra' folder into ./apps/plugins/ and then just run

Code: [Select]

make

and will it compile gifview into something I can use on my rockbox?

[Chronon]

The most recent submission on that page is a patch.  You should use the "patch" program as described on the WorkingWithPatches page to apply it.