Stage 5: Plug-ins, user settings and dynamic resources

While SimplyHTML concentrates completely on text processing for HTML/CSS documents, it shall not be limited to creating and editing such documents. By delivering a solid and powerful editor for single documents it can be the basis for other functions too. Added functionality however is not in the scope of SimplyHTML which is where a plug-in mechanism comes into view.

A plug-in mechanism could allow almost any extension to SimplyHTML while preserving the original scope, leaving additional functions to potential plug-ins. This stage implements such plug-in mechanism along with an enhanced way of working with resource bundles suitable for plug-in usage. To allow users to configure plug-ins individually, a simple way of persistently storing user preferences is implemented too.

The plug-in mechanism is created with the idea of future enhancements according to the needs of plug-in developers. This is best done in an evolutionary process which is why it is started in this stage instead of waiting until additional editing functions are finalized.