openlp.org 2.0 is cooking!

Over the last few months about 8 people have been quietly working on a new version of openlp.org: Version 2.0. This version is being written in Python, so that it will work on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X - a feature that has been requested many times.

In addition to being cross-platform, openlp.org 2.0 has a plugin system, where people can write their own plugins if they wish. These plugins hook into openlp.org and allow plugin developers to do the same things that the core system does. In fact, the core system (Songs, Bible verses, etc) are all plugins themselves.

One thing about writing these applications that is frustrating, is that when you start developing them you have to write a lot of code that doesn't appear on the user interface. You need to basically lay a base for the program, and only afterward when you get to the user interface part, can you see the fruits of your labour.

I'm pleased to say that we are starting to see the fruits of our labour! Last night I got the Songs plugin to show it's panel in the Media manager, and to show the song edit window when you click on the Edit button. It might not sound like much, but we've had to do a fair amount of coding just to get to that point.

Unfortunately we do still have a lot of work to do, but it's good to see that we're getting somewhere.