PluginsPro

A plugin adds a new kind of tab to Brink. It’s a small web page, made in HTML and JavaScript, that runs in a tab of its own. It works with Brink through Brink’s plugin API, which gives it a title and status line for its tab, storage of its own, web requests over https, and a way to open links. What it keeps stays in Brink, on your Mac.

Made by the community

Plugins are how Brink grows beyond what’s built in. Anyone can write one, so developers can extend Brink with the tools they want and share them with everyone who uses it. The first four are Cynaptic’s own: Bookmarks for sites you keep, Clock for the time here or elsewhere, RSS Feeds for the newest articles from your feeds, and Timer for countdowns and the like. More will come from the community. If you’re a developer and would like to write one, write to brinkbar@cynaptic.tech.

Cynaptic reads every plugin in full and reviews it before it’s listed on this site, which is where Brink gets plugins from. Each runs on its own in its tab: it can’t read your notes, your other tabs or other plugins’ data. Only a plugin marked as using the network can fetch from the web, and everything a plugin loads comes over https. The plugin list shows every plugin, with its current version and whether it uses the network.

Get a plugin

• In Brink: choose Find Plugins… in the “+” menu, or open Settings › Plugins. It lists the plugins you have and the ones you can get. Click Get.
• From this site, in Safari: on a plugin’s page, with Brink installed, Safari shows a banner, Open in the Brink app. Click Open: Brink shows the plugin with Get and Cancel (or its tab, if you have it already). Get installs it and opens its tab. Other browsers just show the page.

You can get plugins without Brink Pro, but their tabs open locked until you have Brink Pro or its free trial (see Brink Pro).

Use a plugin

Once installed, a plugin appears in the “+” menu, after Brink’s own kinds of tabs, and on the New Tab page with a letter of its own. Its tabs work like any other: in any pane, in any workspace, and back as they were after a relaunch.

• Links in a plugin’s tab open in your browser (or the app they belong to).
• Brink’s ⌘ shortcuts stay Brink’s. Escape goes to the plugin first; if the plugin doesn’t use it, it hides the panel.
• A plugin that uses the network reaches only the sites you give it, such as the feeds you subscribe to, and only over https.
• Plugins keep running in tabs you aren’t looking at, until you quit Brink.
• If a plugin’s tab stops working, it says so, with Reload.

Updates

Brink checks this site for new plugins and updates when it opens and once a day, and installs updates by itself. Open tabs reload with the new version, keeping what they showed. To check right away, click Check Now in Settings › Plugins, which also says when Brink last checked. A plugin version that needs a newer Brink isn’t installed until you update Brink in the App Store; Settings › Plugins says so.

Report a plugin

If a plugin does something it shouldn’t, or shows something that doesn’t belong in it, choose Report Plugin… in its tab’s menu (right-click the tab) or in Settings › Plugins. It starts an email to brinkbar-support@cynaptic.tech with the plugin’s name and version; add what you saw.

A plugin can be pulled. Brink then turns it off, and its tabs say why. Its data stays until you remove it.

Remove a plugin

In Settings › Plugins, click Remove beside the plugin. Its tabs close (Brink asks first if one is busy), and the plugin and its data are deleted. You can get it again later from the same list.

A tab whose plugin you no longer have says This tab’s plugin isn’t installed, with Get (when the plugin is still offered) and Close. Get it, and the tab comes back as it was.