The OfxHost Struct

The OfxHost struct is how a host provides plug-ins with access to the various suites that make up the API they implement, as well as a host property set handle which a plug-in can ask questions of. The setHost function in the OfxPlugin struct is passed a pointer to an OfxHost as the first thing to boot-strapping plug-in/host communication. The struct looks like...

typedef struct OfxHost {
  OfxPropertySetHandle host;
  void *(*fetchSuite)(OfxPropertySetHandle host, const char *suiteName, int suiteVersion);
} OfxHost;
  

The OfxHost contains two elements,

The host property set handle in the OfxHost is not global across all plug-ins defined in the binary. It is only applicable for the plug-in whose 'setHost' function was called. Use this handle to fetch things like host application names, host capabilities and so on. The set of properties on an OFX Image Effect host is found in the section Properties on the Image Effect Host

The fetchSuite function is how a plug-in gets a suite from the host. It asks for a suite by giving the C string corresponding to that suite and the version of that suite. The host will return a pointer to that suite, or NULL if it does not support it. Please note that a suite cannot be fetched until the very first action is called on the plug-in, which is the load action.