How To

What's an openFrameworks addon?

An addon is code that extends openFrameworks, usually one of two ways: wrapping an external library so it's easy to use from OF (e.g. a Kinect or MIDI wrapper), or packaging up a reusable piece of your own OF code so other people don't have to solve the same problem twice. New to openFrameworks itself? See About openFrameworks.

Installing an addon

Every addon on this site links straight to its GitHub repo. Clone it into your OF install's addons/ folder:

cd openFrameworks/addons/
git clone https://github.com/owner/ofxSomeAddon

Open the project files in the addon's example folder (not every addon has one) and build. If it doesn't build cleanly, check the addon's own README for dependencies — being listed here isn't a guarantee it works, it just means the crawler found it.

Addon folder structure

For your addon to work smoothly when someone drops it into their addons/ folder, follow the standard layout:

ofxMyAddon/
  src/
    ofxMyAddon.h
    ofxMyAddon.cpp
  libs/              (only if wrapping an external library)
  example/
    src/
      main.cpp
      ofApp.h
      ofApp.cpp

Multiple examples are fine — just prefix each folder with example-, e.g. example-basic, example-advanced.

Getting listed

There's no submission form — push your addon to GitHub with an ofx prefix in the repo name and the crawler picks it up automatically (it runs every few hours). From there it shows up under Unsorted until someone categorizes it.

Managing your own addons

Sign in with GitHub (top right) and any repo of yours the crawler has found shows up under My Addons. From there you can pick categories yourself — which is what actually gets an addon out of Unsorted and onto the site, no need to wait on an admin — along with writing your own description (or generating one from your README), setting a custom thumbnail, and hiding a repo from public listings if it's not ready yet.

Signing in only ever asks GitHub for your public profile (username and avatar), to match you to the repos the crawler already found under your account. It doesn't request any repository access at all — not your private repos, not the ability to read your code, not push access, nothing. We also never see or store your GitHub password.

Adding a thumbnail

Addons can show a small header image on their card. Add a 270×70px PNG named ofxaddons_thumbnail.png to the root of your repo, and it'll show up automatically on the next crawl.

Is my addon "done"?

• Does the description/README explain what it does?
• Do you list which platforms you support?
• Is there at least one working example?
• Does it build against a recent OF release?
• Is the license clear, and does it credit any code you built on?

How this site finds addons

A crawler searches GitHub for repos matching the ofx prefix, checks each one's folder structure and file listing, and stores what it finds. Nothing here is manually reviewed for quality — categorization (sorting an addon into GUI, Graphics, Sound, etc.) is a manual pass an admin does afterward, and repos that turn out to have nothing to do with openFrameworks (same name prefix by coincidence) get filtered out from there.