What options do I have as far as creating a plugin management system for something such as Conky. What I am interested in is creating a system for Conky that would allow me to create new functions and add them through a shared library. This I feel would make it easier to create new configurations and variables for Conky without the need to recompile from source and allow these new functions to be shared independent of Conky. What are some general starting points for creating a system such as this? Are shared libraries the best option or are there better one.
I realize Conky already has an ability similar to this with the ability to call a system shell and return whatever is required, however many of the functions I would like to add would bog down Conky unless directly written in.