The IBExpert PlugIns menu is intended for user-specified menu items for third party components. Two Delphi PlugIn examples are supplied as part of IBExpert and can be found in the IBExpert/PlugIn directory. You need to have Delphi^Ž, Firebird or InterBase^Ž and, of course, IBExpert installed.

Simply place the plugins dll file into <IBExpert>\Plugins directory. Finally you will need to restart IBExpert.

Example 1

This example demonstrates how to retrieve database and table information.

Place Test.dll into the <IBExpert>\Plugins directory and restart IBExpert. This plugin adds an additional menu item to the main menu (Plugin Demo).

Example 2

This plugin is a non-visual plugin that demonstrates how to work with the code editor.

Place TestEx.dll into the <IBExpert>\Plugins directory and restart IBExpert. This plugin adds a three-level menu (Convert Keywords/Identifiers Charcase) to the main menu item, Edit, and to the context menu of the code editors.

Some notes about the PIBEPluginInfoEx structure

Only two parts of this structure are really used by IBExpert:

PlaceMenu

PlaceMenu determines where the plugin menu item will be placed. It should contain a list of integers delimited with a colon, semicolon or space.

Possible values are:

Value	Effect
1	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Databases.
2	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Edit.
3	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / View.
4	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Options.
5	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Tools.
6	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Services.
7	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Plugins.
8	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Windows.
9	Adds plugin menu items to the end of Main Menu / Help.
11	Adds plugin menu items to the end of the code editors' popup menu.

To place the plugin menu item directly into the main menu use negative integer values or 0. For example, -1 places the plugin menu into the main menu immediately after the item Database. 0 places the plugin menu item as the first item of the main menu etc.

MenuStructure

MenuStructure defines the structure of the plugin menu. Each line describes only one menu item.

Definition of the menu item should contain one or more parts delimited with a '|'. The first symbol of each part is the control symbol:

Value	Effect
C	Caption of the menu item.
E	Procedure associated with the menu item (must also be listed in an export clause of your dll).
B	Inserts a separator before this menu item.
S	Shortcut.
I	Image index.
U	Update procedure. Used to disable/enable the menu item. Must also be listed in an export clause of your dll.