I want to create a plugin ability in my own project. I've looked into JSPF and JPF, but I've also notice that Eclipse has a 'plugin project'.
Is that specific to plugins for the Eclipse IDE, or can I use it for my own project as well? I have tried researching this, but everything seems to be oriented towards the former.
I want to know if Eclipse's plugin project could be helpful for what I need, and where I can find a good explanation of this.
The Eclipse plug-in project is used to make Eclipse specific plug-ins for the Eclipse IDE.
Now, if you want, you can copy the plugin.xml and extensible classes model that Eclipse uses for Eclipse IDE plug-ins to have your own application allow plug-ins.
The Eclipse plug-in model is based on the OSGi model for building Java applications that can be extended with plug-ins.
Any plug-in architecture is going to be complicated to understand and create, because the application has to create extendable classes for nearly everything.