Every plugin can publish one or more tool windows. What the tool window displays is up to the plugin. However, most plugins will use it to show file contents to the user. For example, the code editor plugin shows a code editor, the image editor shows an image editor and so on.

Most IDEs offer some sort of interface for executing tasks, such as launching a compilation. However, usually these interfaces are very application specific. Simulton offers a lot more flexibility here through the very generic task interface. You can run any task that you want. All it does is executing a process on the system. This way any task can be accomplished:

• Launching a compilation process
• Launching a code generator
• Starting a web-browser
• Copying files to an FTP server
• Rendering something
• Calling a Makefile
• Anything!
• ...

The main goal of Simulton is to provide one program that can be used for any task: Work on a complex embedded firmware, creating a website or just making a grocery list. The way that Simulton achieves that is by providing a well designed plugin interface and by giving the user complete and unconditional control over the layout. However, having one application for everything means that the user needs to be able to save and restore the state of the application quickly & easily. For this, Simulton provides workspace files. Unlike competitive products like Eclipse, Simulton workspaces consist of only one workspace file which is a single JSON file. No directory hierarchy, no hidden files, just one plain JSON file.

The Simulton core itself doesn't know about file contents. All it does is providing the file management backend and a plugin manager. Everything else is done by plugins such as the code editor, the image editor, a ToDo list editor and many more.

Each plugin brings its own set of settings with it.