Version 7 of Family Historian extends and enhances support for plugins in various important ways, not least in its support for three new kinds of plugin in addition to the usual kind.  These are:

• Language Plugins
• Report Plugins
• Source-driven Data Entry Plugins

To learn more about the new plugin types, see Special Plugin Types.

As well as the new plugin types, version 7 adds three new objects, Age,  Rich Text and Section, and numerous new functions (see below).  The Age object is used to hold Family Historian age information (in much the same way that the Date object stores Family Historian date information).  The Section object is solely for use with Report Plugins.  The Rich Text object is needed in part to support Report Plugins, but is also required to support the new rich text capability of Family Historian.

The Plugin Editor now supports new Debug Mode, which allows you to add debugging code to your script - that is, code which only executes when you run the script under the debugger.  It also has a new Run option on the Debug menu, which runs the script in the normal way - i.e. as if it were being run from the Plugins window, and not under the debugger.  It also now lists line numbers down the left side.

Family Historian plugins are written in Lua and use Lua components.  Version 7 now uses an updated version of Lua and related components.  The new versions are:

• Lua 5.3.5
• CD 5.12
• IUP 3.28
• IM 3.13

New versions bring enhanced features and greater power, but can also mean that some existing plugins may need to be revised to be compatible with the new versions.

New Objects

• Age
• Rich Text
• Section

New functions

• fhBeginsWithVowel
• fhGetClipboardData
• fhDisplayRichTextBox
• fhFtfEncode
• fhFtfParamEncode
• fhGetCurrentPropertyBoxRecord.htm
• fhGetDataList.htm
• fhGetFactTypeInfo
• fhGetIniFileValue
• fhGetMetafieldDefinition
• fhGetMetafieldShortcut
• fhGetMetafieldType
• fhGetNarrSentence
• fhGetNarrSentenceTemplate
• fhGetQualifiedRecordId
• fhGetTypeInfo
• fhGetValueAsAge
• fhGetValueAsRichText
• fhIndGetFactList
• fhIndGetName
• fhLoadTextFile
• fhNewAge.htm
• fhNewRichText
• fhNewSection
• fhPromptUserForRichText
• fhSaveTextFile.htm
• fhSetIniFileValue
• fhSetValueAsAge
• fhSetValueAsRichText

The word-processing features of Family Historian are implemented using a new syntax called FTF (it stands for 'Family Historian Text Format'). There is also another format called eFTF, which stands for 'extended FTF'. eFTF is a superset of FTF, used in generating reports. Finally there is a 3rd variant called tFTF which is a variant of eFTF used in particular contexts.  See Rich Text Syntax to learn more.