Question

I’m trying to build an extension system for my application, basically to add
different protocols in it (facebook and twitter connection for example) and
be able to configure them from my main application. I want it to be pretty
similar to how dolphin browser extensions work. But I haven’t any idea how
to start it. Do anyone have any interesting links or suggestions about the
conception and the technical part ? I don’t know where to start.

Thanks

Answer 1

There are different options to do that :

• create an interface for the service you want to build, the abstraction of the expected behavior of your twitter/facebook connectors.
• provide a way to lazyly instanciate the implementation of your choice for this service.

It could be done through a factory design pattern, a bus design pattern could also do, or dependency injection with a xml config file.

Each one has its advantages and drawbacks, some are alternatives in some cases, you should definitely have a look at those design patterns.

Regards, Stéphane