Plugins

The graphic programs design can live perfectly without plugins. Why the authentic mania of many users of collecting them and having an ample selection of these accessory components? The Plugins basically extend the capacities of the programs, or perform some combination of actions which are difficult or laborious ir you try to make them only with the normal options of the program.

Often plugins (or, if you prefer, plug-ins) automatically carry out chained tasks. With the variety of programs for a graphic designer, there are very diverse types of plugins and related accessories. In fact, some programs accept diverse types of extensions.

Depending from the application, you may use extensions, components, objects, actions, macros, scripts, xtras, plugins, modules, filters... not always with the same meaning; and as we said, some program is able to accept more than one type of accesories.

Generally speaking, the macros, scripts and actions are a sequence of commands of the program. They can request the user some data input, or choosing parameters or simply run down their task at a mouse click. Other features may include saving or opening presets or styles, which really speed up the use of plugins and ensure the consistency of the obtained results. As with any program you install or run, always be careful with the possibility of virus infection associated with some of these extensions (there are hundreds of macro virus in the case of MS Word.)

The components, plugins, etc., then, usually carry out a specific task for which it would be painstaking to use the base program, the application to which the plugin is associated.

Adobe Photoshop was one of the pioneers in this concept of extensible program by means of accessory modules. Other manufacturers and programmers can contribute their plugins, enriching the capacities of the program. In the case of Photoshop, the plugins once installed end up in the filters menu (its special effects) which you can apply to the images, some of automatically —with no options— and others with a number of options configurable by the user.

Advantages

Besides extending the features of the program, the plugins mean an advantage, because they offer extra capacities for the user who needs them, without necessarily saturating the menus of the program with options or flooding the interface with palettes (something sadly very common in certain applications.)
Many plugins are free and they can be freely obtained from different sources, in special from different websites. In addition, sometimes almost with no programming knowledge, new modules can be created to cover all the imaginable necessities of program. Frequently, in applications with certain limitations, plugins lets them extend their functionality so they match that of the competitive programs. For example, some Illustrator plugins, like Vector Effects, allow functions that in other programs as CorelDraw has been included by default with the basic program for many versions: the three-dimensional extrusion and warping operations come to mind. This doesn’t mean that Corel is superior in all their features; the inverse situation has also occurred: Illustrator pioneered some effects like the gradient mesh, and Corel try to follow suite soon after.
Plugins can activated or disabled, so if you need to save memory or system resources you can do it by only having the add-ons you need enabled.
They allow that an old version of a program isn’t so underpowered. However, to incorporate the new functions offered by some commercial plugins, you have to purchase them separately, and it might as well happen that the cost is superior to the main program update price, since commercial plugins are sometimes as expensive as a complete program! There are always exceptions, of course. And commercial plugins usually aren’t simply an isolated effect or a concrete function, but a more or less extensive collection of effects and filters.

Examples

A myriad of specific modules exist for different applications, and it would be very long to comment them one by one. Nevertheless, in some cases plugins work for a variety of similar applications. Thus, plugins designed for Photoshop usually work in many other programs of painting and photographic edition. These are generically called Photoshop-compatible plugins.

Plugins compatible with Photoshop are some of the most used by graphic designers. To use this kind of plugin, however, it is not necessary to use Photoshop itself. If we use Paint Shop Pro and other utilities, for example Painter, the Photoshop-compatible plugins can also can be, well, plugged in. There is an enormous offer of this kind of add-on filters for Photoshop; and what’s best, many of them are free. Within the free supply, we should highlight the Unplugged series (grouped in four categories: Unplugged Effects, Colours, Shapes and Tools, with tens of surprising filters in each one.)

In the case of vector drawing applications, Illustrator and Freehand have a good number of plugins each, but most of them of the commercial kind and grouped in collections. For example, the KPT Vector Effects suite for Illustrator, now distributed by Corel. A called package CADTools extends the capacities for technical drawing. Then we have other filter collections such as FilterIt and the many Sapphire plugins. CorelDraw has a technical-drawing oriented plugin, called IsoCalc; its developer offers several utilities free of charge, some quite interesting, like TransIt and RadIt.

NetObjects Fusion (the web edition program with which we created the first version of these pages) admits components that extend his capacities or facilitate certain tasks. For example, to insert a breadcrumb list of links that aim to the superior levels of a site, from where you have been arrived to the current page. The program includes in its defauls installation several very useful components, based on Java or Javascript, and an ample complementary supply exists, either commercial or free. The components allow sometimes incredibly complex tasks, the simplest way that one can imagine, taking advantage of the underlying structure of database files of NOF. These components work with a very intuitive interface —you just choose a few options or follow a step by step wizard and you’re done.

Dreamweaver is one more of the more popular Web edition program, used by many professionals and it is no wonder a good variety of extensions exists. The extensions admitted by the program are varied: commands, objects, actions and behaviours... In general, the commands are invoked from the menu, to carry out a concrete task in the site, the document or a part of it. The objects insert an certain element in the page, for example a dynamic image or an predefined table; the actions are based on Javascript code and allow to comfortably assign scripts and dhtml actions. The interesting thing of Dreamweaver is the capacity of which the user may creates and share its own extensions. Some require programming skills (the actions), but others, like the objects, are in fact one regular HTML page that contains the fragment of code HTML to insert, plus an identifying icon.

All this variety has been centralised in a single extension format since the fourth version of the program, the Macromedia Extension Format (mxp), both for Dreamweaver and for Flash as well. The extensions are managed with a special program, the Macromedia Extension Manager, which lists all available extensions in the system and lets the user install and uninstall them, and enable and disable installed extensions.

There are plugins for many other programs. For example, QuarkXpress, one of the most used desktop publishing programs, focused to the printed publications, enjpys a great variety of “Xtensions”. The same happens to the navigators of Internet. Many special formats of sound or image require the installation of some (usually free) special plugin (RealAudio, Quicktime, Ipix, Flash...) Take care of some few known plugins for your browser, because they might be some kind of spyware or even worse, a harmful virus. Always make sure you have an updated antivirus and use only software and extensions from sites or developers you can trust.

Utilities and links

In other sections of this manual you will find commentaries about different plugins, filters, extensions and components. Then, we must remember some internet addresses where to find more information and download plugins.

Photoshop-compatible filters.

If we collect plugins, say for PaintShop pro or Photoshop, we can end up with an enormous number of them. Since some of them are only valid for very specific effects, we may run an application that allows to manage them. Diverse utilities of this type exist, such as and Filters Unlimited (which is itself a plugin.) Plugin Manager allows to activate and deactivate the available plugins, to see complete information about them and even display a simulation of the results it will produce in the image.

Filter Factory is a utility dedicated to the creation of plugins for Photoshop. It involves a certain mathematical complication, but it is very powerful and flexible. Many modules created by this system are available as free collections you can download from different sites on the Web. There’s even a format to better manage this type of plugins and a utility for it (Plugin Commander.)

Existen varias webs que ofrecen detallados informes sobre los plugins, archivos listos para descargar, tutoriales y enlaces. A destacar las páginas de , y (aunque sin duda deben existir muchos otros sitios semejantes o mejores.) Some websites offer detailed information about plugins, files ready to download, tutorials and links. Visit Photoshop Plugged In , and PSP Art resources (although you may find many other similar or better sites; contact us for suggestions.)

Illustrator plugins

As we said, there are many available plugins, although you’ll have to get your wallet ready to enjoy most of them. Check out sites like Sapphire-Innovations, Hotdoor, and cValley. Corel still distributes the beloved KPT Vector Effects series.

Apollon components, for Netobjects Fusion

Components for NetObjects Fusion

Apollon is a magnificent site full of free components, some of them very useful them, like Structure History. There are also sites that offer a very extensive variety of commercial components: Coolmaps and Bitmotion; in fact Coolmaps works like a club in which the sign-up fees entitles you to download a number of components that depends on the fee that you pay. You can also purchase them independently, or with some discount if you have a basic membership.

Extensions for Dreamweaver and Flash

Many of them can be obtained from the own Macromedia pages (Macromedia Exchange), or from other sites, such as Dreamweaver Depot.

HTMLKit Plugins

One of the html edition programs we use more, HTMLKit, can be infinitelly extended with its plethora of plugins. They do a wide variety of tasks helping the main program; in many cases they offer very powerful options that save lots of time. It even includes batch actions, which run through a series of files to do some operation: for example you can create a whole sitemap or a complete table of contents by automatically reading the headings in each page of a given folder.

Mozilla extensions

Many users’ favourite web browser, mail client, etc., the Mozilla foundation programs can be extended with a huge number of extensions, freely downloadable from their Update page.