/**
 * $Id: documentation.h 33 2002-10-30 02:07:20Z mein $
 *
 * ***** BEGIN GPL/BL DUAL LICENSE BLOCK *****
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
 * as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
 * of the License, or (at your option) any later version. The Blender
 * Foundation also sells licenses for use in proprietary software under
 * the Blender License.  See http://www.blender.org/BL/ for information
 * about this.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
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 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
 * Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.
 *
 * The Original Code is Copyright (C) 2001-2002 by NaN Holding BV.
 * All rights reserved.
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 * The Original Code is: all of this file.
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 *
 * @mainpage plugin API - the access point for texture and sequence
 * plugins
 *
 * @section about About the plugin API
 *
 * This API wraps functions that are used by texture and sequence
 * plugins. They are explicitly wrapped in order to make the
 * dependencies to the rest of the system clear.
 *
 * @section issues Known issues with the plugin API
 *
 * - It can be difficult at times to get access to the API functions
 * linked into the final executable. On gcc, the -fpic and -shared
 * flags take care of this. On Irix, -shared is needed, but you also
 * need a reference to the function to get the handle. This has
 * momentarily been taken care of by pluginapi_force_ref().
 *
 * - Plugins need to define three functions that are needed for
 * version bookkeeping and information. The plugin loading code
 * explicitly checks for these functions. The nanes depend on whether
 * it is a texture or sequence plugin.
 *
 * - The plugin loading occurs in sequence.c and texture.c. The
 * following functions are involved:
 *   - open_plugin_seq() (used in readfile.c, editseq.c, sequence.c)
 *   - add_plugin_seq()  (used in editseq.c, sequence.c)
 *   - free_plugin_seq() (used in editseq.c, sequence.c)
 *   - open_plugin_tex() (used in texture.c, readfile.c)
 *   - add_plugin_tex()  (used in texture.c, buttons.c)
 *   - free_plugin_tex() (used in texture.c, buttons.c)
 *   - test_dlerr()      (used in texture.c, sequence.c)
 * Since the plugins are about to phase out, we will not sanitize this
 * code. It will be removed as soon as the replacing system is in
 * place.
 * 
 * @section dependencies Dependencies
 *
 * The plugins wraps functions from IMB and BLI. In addition, they
 * define some useful variables.
 * */

