How much time (range) necessary to create a plugin? Any estimates?

I think the answer depends on how much Objective-C you know, and what sort of plugin you are creating!

Yes, but assuming some knowledge and experience with Object-C, what timeframe. I understand what type of plug in will make all the difference, just trying to get and understanding of range of hours needed.

Without sounding to cliche' it depends. I've made a few in less than an hour. I've made some in :10 minutes (really) and I've made some in several days. The variation in time will depend on... a) Is the plugin dynamic? In other words, does it need a complicated index.php page to manage it and configure it or is is simple. Lots of plugins can be imagined that have no dyanmic properties and as such the index.php page is simply an informational page so it's must faster to create. Example: Does the plug need the app-owner to enter or choose a bunch of options? b) Is the layout complicated? The layout complexity changes the development time greatly. Other than that, the Objective C and Java are usually not tough (for developers). I spent the weekend working on the how-to pluging guide...did't finish it. Creating one is... 1) Copy an exisitng plugin (the entire folder) that already does some or part of what you want to do 2) Rename the folder. 3) Open the config.txt file and rename the plugin (unique id), update the other values in that file (self explanatory mostly) 4) Change the class-file names in the source-ios and android-ios folders. These are a UIViewController for iOS and an Activity for Android. In most cases you'll only have one class for the plugin. For iOS this is two files, for Android it's one. Rename the class and the actual file names. 5) Update the icon.png file to reflect what your plugin does. Done. At this point the plugin does exactly what the one you copied did. It's up to you to modify the class files and the index.php page and the readme.txt explanation. Add screenshots to /screenshots folder and they will automagically appear in control panel. Super long weekend off the grid, glad to be back! Can't wait to get to the office in 6 hours ;-)

There is no read me file in plugins folder. I hope I have not missed the answer somewhere in my control panel and sound foolish but my question is concerning the plugins which are to be uploaded to my own server. should I simply upload the plugins folder to the BT-server folder without extracting the files from the their zip folder Or perhaps you could explain the upload procedure Thanks Joe

I'm just waiting with anticipation, till I have a few weekends (probably during Christmas break) to go for it. Going to be fun.

@Web Daddy: Every plugin has it's own folder. This folder ALWAYS includes a readme.txt file, along with lots of other files. Maybe you're looking at the wrong thing? You may be referring to the empty plugins folder on your server after you install the control panel package. The idea is that folder is empy until you install some plugins. a) Download the plugins you want to use from your buzztouch.com contorl panel b) Upload these to your self-hosted control panel

Thanks I indeed failed thinking 101. I downloaded the package of all plugins and failed to open the individual zips