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About This Guide

The Composer Plug-in Guide tells you how to develop plug-ins that extend the HTML-editing functionality of the Composer and Mail Compose windows in Communicator 4.0. It is a developer's guide and complete reference to the Composer Plug-in API, which is written in Java.

The Composer Plug-in Guide is designed for the developer who wants to extend the capabilities of Netscape Composer. This web-based guide is your introduction to developing Composer Plug-ins, including:

• Composer Plug-in classes and methods and their use
• The Composer Testbed development environment
• Sample Composer Plug-ins, included in the Composer Plug-in Kit, that demonstrate start-to-finish plug-in development 
• Step by step instructions for developing, packaging, and installing a plug-in

This guide assumes that you are using the Java Development Kit (JDK) version 1.1, or an IDE that is compatible with JDK 1.1, to develop and the Communicator 4.0 environment to deploy. This basic approach is easily adaptable to other development environments. In general, if your plug-in works correctly when run under JDK 1.1 with the Composer Plug-in Kit, it will also work with Communicator 4.0. For more information, see "Your Java Version."

• Conventions Used in This Guide
• The Composer Plug-in Development Kit
• Developer Products and Support

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Conventions Used in This Guide

All program code listings, URLs, and other program names appear in Courier, a monospace font.

To show class membership of methods, this guide follows object-oriented programming practice in using dot notation.

Plugin.getCategory

This guide emphasizes information with several types of note formats:

Note:  
Information of interest to the developer but not essential to understanding the surrounding topic.  

Important: 
Information that can affect the development decisions you make or the development environment you choose. Don't miss these notes. 

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The Composer Plug-in Development Kit

The Composer Plug-in Development Kit comes in a zip file that contains the following folders and files:

• classes folder - Classes for the Composer Plug-in and HTML tokenizer and Netscape compatibility classes
• source folder - Source code for selected parts of the Composer Plug-in API
• samples folder - Sample classes provided to demonstrate and help you learn to write Composer Plug-ins, packaged in cpTest.jar, a Java ARchive file
• docs folder - Composer Plug-in JavaDoc documentation 
• ReleaseNotes.html - Readme file that includes development notes and information about using the SDK

You can download the Composer Plug-in Kit at this URL. Unzip the archive using a utility that preserves the file hierarchy, for example, Winzip. For the latest information about installation, see ReleaseNotes.html, included in the Composer Plug-in Kit.

To find other development resources, see the Composer Plug-in Samples Page.

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Developer Products and Support

You are part of a growing community of developers who are taking advantage of the development opportunities provided by Netscape Communicator. You'll find helpful resources at these web sites:

• For information about new plug-ins, see the Composer Plug-in Samples Page.
  
  
• For plug-in development resources, see Plug-ins Developer Central.
  
  
  
• For documentation of standard Java JDK 1.1 classes, see Java^TM Platform 1.1.3 Core API.
  
  
• For information about downloading and using Java, see the main Java web site.
  
  
• For Netscape developer information, see the Netscape DevEdge site.

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