Plugins

farman supports external plugins that add viewers and archive formats after the fact. In addition to official plugins, third-party plugins are supported too.

External plugins are native code and run with the same privileges as farman. For safety, loading external plugins is off by default. Only enable plugins from sources you trust.

Available plugins

3D model viewer (FBX)

Display .fbx 3D models inside farman. Supports textures (external and embedded), skeletal animation, multiple materials, a floor grid, wireframe, and bone (skeleton) display. Rotate, pan, and zoom with the mouse or keyboard (the keys are configurable under Settings → Keybindings).

A FBX model shown in the 3D model viewer
3D model viewer (textures and skeletal animation)
  • Type: viewer
  • Platforms: macOS / Windows / Linux
  • Compatible farman: 0.9.9 or later

Download Repository

LZH (LHA) archive

Browse and extract .lzh / .lha archives, just like zip / tar. Japanese Shift-JIS file names are handled (read-only). The macOS build is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized.

  • Type: archive
  • Platforms: macOS / Windows / Linux
  • Compatible farman: 0.9.8 or later

Download Repository

More plugins will be added over time. Want to build one? See "Plugin development" below.

How to install

External plugins are loaded from farman's plugins directory. The steps are the same for any plugin.

  1. Download the file for your OS from the plugin's download page (macOS: .dylib / Windows: .dll / Linux: .so).
  2. In farman, go to Settings → Plugins and click Open to open the plugins directory. Put viewer plugins into the viewers subfolder and archive plugins into archives.
  3. On the same screen, turn on Allow loading external plugins (off by default).
  4. Restart farman. If the plugin appears in the list under Settings → Plugins, it's installed.
Open the plugins directory and allow loading external plugins under Settings → Plugins
Settings → Plugins (use "Open" to reveal the plugins directory and turn on "Allow loading external plugins")

macOS: official plugins are signed + notarized and load as-is. Unsigned third-party plugins may be blocked on first load by download quarantine (follow the provider's instructions). Windows: unsigned plugins may trigger a SmartScreen warning.

Plugin development

farman plugins are written in C++ / Qt. Implement the IViewerPlugin (viewers) or IArchivePlugin (archives) interface and build a dynamic library. The guide covers ABI (Qt version) matching, priority ranges, runtime linking on macOS, a CI template, and more.

Plugin development guide Reference (farman-plugin-lzh)