Introducing extensibility
Extensibility, in terms of software development, means that the software can have components added without impacting or having to change the underlying code. Moreover, the underlying code provides "hooks" within the infrastructure, specifically designed to make for the addition of new components, thus allowing developers to add new or alternative capabilities not provided by the product.
Extensibility in SQL Developer
The FCP is designed to allow users to build Java extensions that can be added to either JDeveloper or SQL Developer. You can build large complex features using Java. The Migrations and Versioning support within SQL Developer are examples of this, and there are external customers building Java extensions.
SQL Developer provides an additional infrastructure with code "hooks" for adding items using only XML with embedded SQL and PL/SQL. The extra item types that you can add are as follows:
- Display editors
- Context menus
- Reports
- Navigator...
