Installing Plugins
Plugins must be installed before they can be loaded onto a GeoBar. Simply putting the plugin's dll file into the plugin directory is not enough, though the topic of removing this limitation has been discussed a few times.
Manually Installing Plugins
It is not advised to install plugins by hand. The format is simple, but takes a little bit of guess work.
The list of installed plugins and the dll files they reside in can be seen in the registry here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\geo\GeoShell\Plugins. These settings are all strings and should look something like this:
| Name |
Value |
| geoMenuLaunch |
geoMenuLaunch.dll,1 |
| geOCommandTime |
geOCommandTime.dll,0 |
| geOSep |
geOSep.dll,1 |
| geOTasks |
GeoTasks.dll,0 |
The name of the setting is the name that will show up in the Gripper Menu that you see when you load and unload plugins. The value is the name of the dll file followed by a comma and a number (usually 1 or 0).
The number after the dll file's name represents the plugin's location in that dll file. All modern plugins reside in their own dll files, though this was not always the case. Also, depending on how the plugin was developed, the first plugin in the dll file may be identified by either a "0" or a "1" – because of this, it often takes a little bit of trial and error to figure out which number you want to use when manually installing plugins, which is why it is not recommended to install plugins by adding their settings into the registry by hand.
install-box
The Plugin Install Dialog Box
It is best to use the install dialog to install plugins instead of trying to add them to the registry manually. The Plugin Install Dialog Box can be found and lauched a number of ways:
- This dialog can be launched with the default hotkey Win+I.
- This dialog can be launched by an entry in the default right click menu (not the GeoStart menu!) located at "Settings > geOShell Plugins > Install Plugin..."
- This dialog can be launched from an entry in the Gripper Menu located at "Load Plugins > Install Plugin...". A screenshot of this menu can be seen below.
Once you have used whatever method described above to open the Plugin Install Dialog, you will see something like this:
All that you have to do now is select the plugin you want to load and press "Open".
Plugin Location
The location of the dll files is configured by the Plugins Location string located in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\geo\GeoShell key. The default setting reflects the storage in a subdirectory of your GeoShell directory named "plugins".
 | While this dialog box allows you to browse to other directories, it opens to the configured location for the storage of plugins. If you use the Plugin Install Dialog to install a plugin that is not located in this directory, then you will likely find that it installs, loads, and works just fine – until you reboot your machine and GeoShell forgets the 'special' location the dll is stored in. |
