I think you need an overview of plugins on the Touch in general. The older players didn't do anything on the player itself, it was all done in the server. There was a type of application which was added to the server called a plugin. Plugins could interact with the user (menus, display) and the library of music.
The newer players (radio and touch) have a different architecture. They have a much more powerful computer which allows a fair amount of processing to happen in the player. The result is that the interaction with the user (menus, buttons, display etc) is all handled locally on the player rather than in the server. Things that interact with the library still run as plugins on the server. The new players have added a new class of program called an applet which runs directly on the player. They are written in a different language than a server plugin and have extensive support for user interface elements (buttons, images, text fields, menus, sliders etc). The upshot of this is that many of the existing plugins will not work with the Touch. Some will have to be re-written as applets and some will need to be re-written as a combination of applet and plugin, the accessing of the library is kept as a plugin and the user interface part done as an applet. Plugins whose sole user interface was through the WebUI will probably still work. If the plugin displayed stuff on the player screen or used a menu on the player screen its probably not going to work with the Touch. Using the builtin server changes things even more. It cannot run pluggins (not enough memory) so you can't even run the plugins that do run with the Touch, and even if a plugin has been re-written as an applet and a plugin it won't work because the internal server can't run the plugin part. You CAN run applets on the Touch when using the internal server so anything that has been written just as an applet will work, but thats it. If you want a certain functionality that existed in a plugin for the older players your best bet is to ask specifically if that function or something similar currently exists for the Touch. John S. -- JohnSwenson ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=78869 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
