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Get started[]
- Download API (and checkout examples) and include it in your build
- You might have to install the latest MusicBee build to test your work.
Basic MB - plugin workflow[]
- MusicBee..
- starts by loading your dll
- talks to your plugin via predefined plugin-methods on certain events (starting with Initialise)
- Your plugin reacts to Musicbee on certain events and can use MusicBee internal "stuff" via API methods
API files and more detailed[]
- MusicBeeInterface.cs..
contains all the definitions and constants used by MusicBee (such as MusicBeeApiInterface, PluginInfoVersion, etc.). All these enums, delegates and structs are members of the class MusicBeePlugin.Plugin.
- TestCSharpDll.cs
is an example plugin and extends the class further with predefined methods called by MusicBee to communicate with your plugin, such as:- Initialise sets it all up:
- Provides the MusicBeeApiInterface to control MusicBee
- Provides/returns the PluginInfo with various ways for MB to know how to handle the plugin
- ReceiveNotification handles all Notifications depending on its own PluginInfo::ReceiveNotificationFlags
- whatever you need to do to initialise the plugin
- See TestCSharpDll.cs itself, it's all explained in comments.
- Initialise sets it all up:
- Inside these methods requests are sent to MusicBee via MusicBeeApiInterface
- Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs..
is auto-generated (and auto-modified) by Visual Studio and contains a bunch of attributes that define the product name, description, copyright, version etc. strings embedded into the DLL file.
Remarks[]
The API (MusicBeeApiInterface) provides a bunch of delegates it received from MB If you know C, delegates are type-safe and nicely encapsulated function pointers slash trampolines.
Tips[]
- Don't display version number in your dll
E.g. don't compile into "MyPlugin_1.3.dll"
Because this can result into having multiple versions of the same plugin loaded by MB, since the end-user will not necessarily delete the old version. It's better to let them overwrite it by default.