Discussion Orbiter Addon Development Guidelines

[tblaxland]

Following on from my post here, I would like to develop a set of generic guidelines for Orbiter addon development that could be hosted on the articles section of Orbiter-Forum. I am looking to include information that might be of assistance to addon developers in producing higher quality addons. Things like:

• What to include, or not include in your addon
• How to package your addon
• What should the documentation cover
• etc

I want to avoid trying to be too dictatorial, we are all doing this for a hobby after all

I'll start with this:

Before releasing you first addon
Don't be tempted to release the first version of your first addon. You may think it is good because of what you have achieved in producing it, but it will often not be good enough for other Orbiter users. Work on it some more, test it, refine it, test it again, review the documentation, and finally, test it again. Then your addon may be ready for uploading. This way your addons will be more respected. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Post any contributions here for discussion. Over time we should arrive at some sort of cohesive document.

 

[ex-orbinaut]

What a coincidence! In that spirit exactly, I just logged on to post a quick concept test sample for criticism. Well, well...:thumbup:

 

[Bj]

You could add stuff that is on the orbit-wiki Add-on Etiquette page

Everything there really should be added. Should ask whomever wrote it if you could use some of it for your article.

 

[tblaxland]

^ Thanks Bj. I had thought I'd seen an article like that on OrbiterWiki but I couldn't locate it. The work is Urwumpe's.

 

[tblaxland]

I've just discovered that the old thread I was thinking of on m6 can be found here: http://www.orbitersim.com/Forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=3643. Lots of good info to review there and some that could be rolled into a Guideline document (some serious editing required though, we don't want this to be so big that no-one reads it ).