Viewpoint and FilmPack are not actually adding functionality to PhotoLab. Their licenses are merely unhiding functionality which is already completely built into PhotoLab. So while to the casual observer they may look like plugins, and they may seem to act like plugins, they are not plugins in the traditional understanding of the term since they are not adding functionality that wasn’t already there.
Mark
Filmpack and Viewpoint are plugin and they do not break the RAW and non-destructive features of PL. A quick check of the dop file shows that Filmpack edition adds an “Overwrite” section. Nik and Lightroom are lesser plugins, more some kind of export script. You can also find a plug-ins folder in the PL6 installation folders containing very specific DLL.
I do not want to arge on “plugin” definition but FilmPack brings about 200Mbs of its own resources not present in Photolab (plus about 400Mbs of partially PL redundant code for the Filmpack runtime). Activating a license will only require an encoded license key to be added.
Filmpack and ViewPoint in Photolab doesn’t do any additional installation just the entry of the license code.
On the other hand to use them as plug in for other third -party software there yes they must be installed.
I assume you’re talking about installing the Viewpoint or FilmPack software which is only required for the standalone versions of those titles. While I do have licenses for both Viewpoint 4 and PhotoLab Elite 6.2, I do not use the standalone versions and do not have that software installed. I just use the licenses to unhide the features already within PhotoLab.
The standalone versions of Viewpoint and FilmPack can be used as plugins to third party software, but the embedded Viewpoint and FilmPack features in PhotoLab requires no additional software installation, just a software license to make them visible.
Mark
For this time/version PL6 I’m also intrested in the ability to extend functionality with some kind of plugins or other external programs, because PL6 is missing funktionalities like stitching panoramas and focus stacking. For HDR, NIK Collection could be a way to go, so opening PL sounds like an interesting idea.
To have some kind of scripting possibilities would be intresting as well, because it offers the possibilities in many ways. With an other RAW-converter I use I do some kind of file renaming after export and distributing different types of pictures to specific locations (OneDrive, NAS SMB-Shares, …)
While the requirements for PlugIns may go down, while adding requested features (HDR, Panorama and Focus Stacking) the option of having scripts would me very intresting and doesn’t necessary means that DxO has to develop their own scripting language. For example PowerShell is available on every Windows System and can be installed on MacOS and Linux as well.
Installing heavy Windows libraries and frameworks would be reason enough for me never to upgrade PhotoLab again. I’d like to see a convincing use case for all this scripting before any of this very time-consuming and fragile development starts.