Packaging OFX Plug-ins
Where a host application chooses to search for OFX plug-ins, what binary format they are in and any directory hierarchy is entirely up to it. However, it is strongly recommended that the following scheme be followed.
Binary Types
Plug-ins should be distributed in the following formats, depending on the host operating system….
Microsoft Windows, as “.dll” dynamically linked libraries,
Apple OSX, as binary bundles,
LINUX (and other Unix variants), as native dynamic shared objects.
Installation Directory Hierarchy
Each plug-in binary is distributed as a Mac OS X package style directory
hierarchy. Note that there are two distinct meanings of ‘bundle’, one
referring to a binary file format, the other to a directory hierarchy
used to distribute software. We are distributing binaries in a bundle
package, and in the case of OSX, the binary is a binary bundle. All the
binaries must end with ".ofx"
, regardless of the host operating
system.
The directory hierarchy is as follows…..
NAME.ofx.bundle
Contents
Info.plist
Resources
NAME.xml
EFFECT_A.png
EFFECT_A.svg
EFFECT_B.png
EFFECT_B.svg
…
ARCHITECTURE_A
NAME.ofx
ARCHITECTURE_B
NAME.ofx
…
ARCHITECTURE_N
NAME.ofx
Where…
Info.plist is relevant for OSX only and needs to be filled in appropriately,
NAME is the file name you want the installed plug-in to be identified by,
EFFECT_N.png - is an optional PNG image file image to use as an icon for the effect in the plug-in binary which has a matching
pluginIdentifier
field in theOfxPlugin
struct,EFFECT_N.svg - is an optional scalable vector graphic file to use as an icon for the plug-in in the binary which has a matching
pluginIdentifier
field in theOfxPlugin
struct,ARCHITECTURE is the specific operating system architecture the plug-in was built for, these are currently…
MacOS
- for Apple Macintosh OS X universal or architecture-specific binariesMacOS-x86-64
- DEPRECATED. Formerly used for Intel Macs during the transition from PowerPC.Win32
- for Microsoft Windows (compiled 32 bit)Win64
- for Microsoft Windows (compiled 64 bit)IRIX
- for SGI IRIX plug-ins (compiled 32 bit) (DEPRECATED)IRIX64
- for SGI IRIX plug-ins (compiled 64 bit) (DEPRECATED)Linux-x86
- for Linux on x86 CPUs (compiled 32 bit)Linux-x86-64
- for Linux on x86 CPUs running AMD’s 64 bit extensions
Note that not all the above architectures need be supported, only the architectures supported by the host product itself.
MacOS Architectures and Universal Binaries
For MacOS, as of 2024 (OpenFX v1.5), all MacOS plug-ins should be in
MacOS
, and preferably should be universal binaries (whatever that
means at any given point in time, given the hosts a plug-in is trying
to support). There will not be a specific arm64
folder.
This is acceptable since MacOS supports multi-architecture binaries, so per-architecture subdirectories are not needed for a host application to find the proper architecture plug-in. This proposal would prohibit a plug-in from shipping a separate Intel and arm64 binaries (since the plug-in .ofx file must always be named to match the top-level bundle name), but it should not be difficult for any plug-in to merge multiple architectures into a single binary on MacOS.
Future Architecture Compatibility
NOTE: this section is not yet normative, but informational.
Note that Windows and Linux do not support universal binaries. Each .ofx file is for one architecture, so a host must check the proper architecture-specific subdir.
When Windows and/or Linux support alternative processor architectures
such as arm64, hosts should look in appropriately-named subdirs for
the proper .ofx plugin file. On Windows with arm64, Win-arm64
should be used (vs. current Win32
and Win64
which are
Intel-specific). On Linux, hosts should look in the subdir named by
Linux-${uname -m}
which for arm64 should be Linux-aarch64
.
Using uname -m
rather than a hard-coded list allows for
transparently supporting any future architectures.
Structure
This directory structure is necessary on OS X, but it also gives a nice skeleton to hang all other operating systems from in a single install, as well as a clean place to put resources.
The Info.plist
is specific to Apple and you should consult the Apple
developer’s website for more details. It should contain the following
keys:
CFBundleExecutable
- the name of the binary bundle in the MacOS directoryCFBundlePackageType
- to beBNDL
CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion
CFBundleVersion
CFBundleDevelopmentRegion
Installation Location
Plug-ins are searched for in a variety of locations, both default and user specified. All such directories are examined for plug-in bundles and sub directories are also recursively examined.
A list of directories is supplied in the “OFX_PLUGIN_PATH” environment variable, these are examined, first to last, for plug-ins, then the default location is examined.
On Microsoft Windows machines, the plug-ins are searched for in:
the ‘;’-separated directory list specified by the environment variable “OFX_PLUGIN_PATH”
the directory returned by
getStdOFXPluginPath
in the following code snippet:#include "shlobj.h" #include "tchar.h" const TCHAR *getStdOFXPluginPath(void) { static TCHAR buffer[MAX_PATH]; static int gotIt = 0; if(!gotIt) { gotIt = 1; SHGetFolderPath(NULL, CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES_COMMON, NULL, SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT, buffer); _tcscat(buffer, __T("\\OFX\\Plugins")); } return buffer; }
the directory
C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins
. This location is deprecated, and it is returned by the code snippet above on English language systems. However it should still be examined by hosts for backwards compatibility.
On Apple OSX machines, the plug-ins are searched for in:
the ‘;’-separated directory list specified by the environment variable “OFX_PLUGIN_PATH”
the directory
/Library/OFX/Plugins
On UNIX, Linux and other UNIX like operating systems, the plug-ins are searched for in:
the ‘:’-separated directory specified by the environment variable “OFX_PLUGIN_PATH”
the directory
/usr/OFX/Plugins
Any bundle or sub-directory name starting with the character ‘@’ is to be ignored. Such directories or bundles must be skipped by the host.
Plug-in Icons
Some hosts may wish to display an icon associated with the effects in a plug-in binary on their interfaces. Any such icon must be in the Portable Network Graphics format (see http://www.libpng.org/) and must contain 32 bits of colour, including an alpha channel. Ideally it should be at least 128x128 pixels.
Note that a single plug-in binary may define more than one effect, when OfxGetNumberOfPlugins returns a value greater than 1. These icons are specific to each effect within the plug-in, and are named according to what is returned from OfxGetPlugin.
Host applications should dynamically resize the icon to fit their preferred icon size. The icon should not have its aspect changed, rather the host should fill with some appropriate colour any blank areas due to aspect mismatches.
Ideally plug-in developers should not render the plug-in or effect’s name into the icon, as this may be changed by the resource file, especially for internationalisation purposes. Hosts should thus present the plug-in and/or effect’s name next to the icon in some way.
The icon file must be named as the corresponding pluginIdentifier
field
from the OfxPlugin
, postpended with ‘.png’ and be placed in the
resources sub-directory.
Some hosts may use a scalable vector icon if provided; it should be in
SVG format and be named and located just like the .png
icon but
with a .svg
suffix.
Externally Specified Resources
Some plug-ins may supply an externally specified resource file for
particular hosts. Typically this is for tasks such as
internationalising interfaces, tweaking user interfaces for specific
hosts, and so on. These are XML files and have DTD associated with the
specific API, for example OFX Image Effect DTD is found in
ofx.dtd
.
The XML resource file is installed in the Resources
subdirectory of
the bundle hierarchy. Its name should be NAME.xml
, where name is the
base name of the bundle folder and the effect binary.
Plug-ins are free to include other resources in the Resources
subdirectory.