Compilation and linking

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; and to Harlequin MultiRIP but not Harlequin Core

This section describes compilation and linking of plugins on Windows platforms.

C compilers

In principle, any Win32 and Win64‐compatible C compiler can be used to develop plugins for PC plat‐ forms. From plugin kit v20.2r2 the use of MSVC 2013 is the supported and recommended version to build a plugin. Earlier versions are not supported.

If you use other compilers, you must consider their calling conventions and data structure packing carefully to ensure compatibility with the RIP.

Warning: The plugin kit header file compiler.h customizes the remainder of the header files for the appropriate compiler, so it is important to use the correct kit for the compiler, and to customize if using a compiler for which Global Graphics does not supply a kit.

Linkers

Each of the development environments listed above comes with its own linker. You should, naturally, use that linker.

Resource editors and compilers

You need a resource editor and compiler to use plugin dialogs and error icons. The compilers mentioned above come with resource compilers.

Visual C++ includes the resource editor AppStudio for creating dialogs and icons. You can compile these resource files with Microsoft resource compilers.

Target file naming

The RIP looks for plugins in the SW directories listed in The plugin directory structure . It uses the filename extension of these plugin executables to distinguish between the different types.

The name of the file is otherwise irrelevant, though it should not conflict with any others. Windows 64‐bit plugins have the extension .i64 .

If the plugin uses additional DLLs, they can use any extension except .i32 and .i64. and are placed in the same directory as the plugin.