Today we released OpenFastTrace 4.11.0 and OpenFastTrace Gradle Plugin 3.5.0. Both releases share one theme: making OFT extension plugins easier to use.

# OpenFastTrace 4.11.0

Until now, extension plugins had to be installed in OFT’s predefined plugin directory. With #610, embedders can now pass plugin JARs to OFT at runtime through the Java API:

Oft.builder().addPlugin("asciidoc", pluginJarFile).build();

This means plugins resolved through an external dependency mechanism — a build tool, a container image, or your own classloader — no longer need to touch the plugin directory at all.

Further changes in 4.11.0:

• #612: The source tag importer now supports Visual Basic (.vb) source files.
• #423: Fixed a tag parsing inconsistency between the Markdown and reStructuredText importers.
• #574: Fixed invalid HTML when inline code contains underscores.
• #401: Added a regression test for an RST parser corner case.
• #605: The user guide now has automatic lateral navigation.

# Gradle Plugin 3.5.0

The Gradle plugin follows up with #77: OFT extension plugins can now be declared as build dependencies via the new pluginDependencies property. The declared artifacts are added to the classpath used by requirement collection and tracing:

plugins {
  id 'org.itsallcode.openfasttrace' version '3.5.0'
}

repositories {
  mavenCentral()
}

requirementTracing {
  pluginDependencies = ['org.itsallcode:openfasttrace-asciidoc-plugin:1.0.0']
}

With this in place, a build that traces AsciiDoc requirements is just one dependency away — no manual copying of JARs into a plugin directory.

Note that these are OpenFastTrace extension plugins, not Gradle build plugins. Plugin JARs must provide the appropriate OpenFastTrace service descriptors and should not include a duplicate incompatible openfasttrace-api dependency. Plugin discovery remains additive to OFT’s built-in plugin directory.

See the Gradle plugin user guide for details.

As always, the releases are available on GitHub and the Gradle plugin on the Gradle Plugin Portal. Feedback and contributions are welcome.