Extensions define the points of integration between your plug-in and the 3ds Max Interactive environment: that is, the things that your plug-in changes or adds to the editor when it's loaded.
You can set up several different kinds of extensions in your .stingray_plugin descriptor file:
menus add new items to the main menus of the editor, like File, Edit, Window. See Create a new menu item.
actions define reusable commands or script blocks that you can refer to from other extensions in your plug-in. See Register an action.
services add new JavaScript worker services to the editor. Your plug-in (or other plug-ins) can require and use these services in exactly the same way as the standard editor services. See Register a custom service.
asset_types tell the Asset Browser how to handle new types of data files in the project -- that is, files whose extensions don't match any known asset types. See Register a custom asset type.
templates identify pre-made assets or projects that you provide with your plug-in, which the editor can use to create new assets and projects. See Define templates for new assets.
previews control the way the Asset Preview behaves when the user selects a given type of resource in the Asset Browser. See Define previews for custom assets.
migrations offer your plug-in a chance to carry out some actions the first time the editor loads a project while this version of your plugin is installed.
events register your plug-in to listen for editor events with a given name, and to carry out an action or a set of actions when that event happens. See Respond to an editor event for configuration instructions, and Emit and handle editor events for more background about events.
views give names to custom UI panels and dialogs that your plug-in adds to the editor. You can then open these named views from other extensions in your plug-in (e.g. from menu items), or even from other plug-ins. See Create a named panel or dialog.
viewports help you integrate an engine viewport into your plug-in's views and panels, like the ones you see in the Level Viewport or the Asset Preview. See Create a custom engine viewport.
runtime_libraries tell the editor to configure all instances of the engine that it launches to automatically load .dll files that you provide with your plug-in. See Extend the Engine.
Every plug-in needs to have at least one of these extensions. There is no limit to the number of extensions that a plug-in can have.
You set up extensions in your .stingray_plugin resource file, in the extensions object:
extensions = {
actions = [
{
...
}
]
menus = [
{
...
}
{
...
}
]
asset_types = [
{
...
}
]
}
Each type of extension has its own named list inside the extensions object -- like menus and actions above. Each of these lists can have any number of objects inside it, each of which configures a single instance of that type of extension. So, for example, the configuration above registers one new action, two new menu items, and one new asset type.
Each type of extension has its own set of configuration parameters too, which you need to set up. See the other pages in this guide for details on the parameters required for each different extension type.
Most of the configuration parameters you set for the extensions in your plug-in are string values. In these values, you can use some special placeholder values that the editor automatically replaces.
Currently, you can use the following variables:
$project: This string is replaced by the path to the current project's source folder.
$editor: This string is replaced by the directory that contains the editor executable: that is, the editor folder under your 3ds Max Interactive installation directory.
Some extensions also add more of these dynamic strings. See the pages in this section for details.