How to Code Plugins For GameEx

[lingpanda]

Where do I start... I'm starting to learn some Visual C++. How do I take my stand alone project and implement it to GameEx? I figured this thread might be able to get others intereted in contributing back to GameEx and the community. I'm actually going back to school to finish my Bachelor's in Computer Science. Maybe I could be of better use to this community.

[headkaze]

Well I have some C++ background which means C# would probably suit you well for .NET coding. The way I deal with things is anything low level I code in C++ and make a dll that I access from my C# program. Most things can be done in C# and is quite easy to do. There are no Managed C++ example plugins unfortunately so you would have to port the existing C# example to C++. I am not sure if a non-managed plugin would work in GameEx. We just havn't got around to trying that. I love C# too much to bother anyway

So I guess the goal here is to learn C#, learn the .NET framework. Start off learning how to use events and delegates, PInvoke if you need WinAPI stuff. Learn System.IO for stuff like File.ReadAllLines(), and File.Exists(), File.Delete(), Path.Combine(), Directory.Create() etc. That is a handy namespace for dealing with files.

Check out the C# example. It's pretty self explainatory. GameEx sends the plugin events that you respond to. It also sends data about the current game selected. It sends an event when attract mode starts and all those kinds of things. So a plugin is really just responding to events and reading data sent from GameEx.

If you need any help feel free to post here any questions.

[Tom Speirs]

LP,

Yeah basically look at the example/s and post if you need help, or even have requests for that matter.