Feedback about new plugin interface

[Gustavo Niemeyer <niemeyer@conectiva.com>]

Peter, I've started to work on a new Python interface for xchat,
developed from the ground. The results so far are quite encoraging,
including individual module unloading and a nice integration with python
features.

I'm missing some features in xchat though. I'd like to have a configure
option to enable xchat to be "prepared" to work with an external python
plugin, without linking python and enabling the internal interface (this
means linking with pthread, at least). Something like a
--enable-python-ready.  I'm currently using a hacked xchat version.
Maybe you have a better idea about how to do this.

I'm also missing some features in the new plugin interface. So far, I
think we need a xchat_is_context(), to be able to check for a context
validity. This is necessary to allow one to catch errors before they
actually happen. Another function we need is an xchat_get_context(), to
access the current context. I know it's possible to acquire the current
context (session, indeed) with the xchat_get_info()/xchat_find_session()
pair. But the overhead we have when using those functions are not
desirable to a simple task like getting the current context. On the
usefulness side, getting the current context won't be uncommon in
higher level interfaces, where many contexts may be necessary at the
same time.

For now, the interface control is trough a "/python" command. Some way
to hook into the GUI will be nice in the future.

Thanks!!

-- 
Gustavo Niemeyer

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