Plugins and resource consumption

[Helix751]

My question is: Do I have to keep my plugins to a minimum so as to keep available resources?

It's an interesting fact that before opening Lister for the 1st time in a TCmd session, plugins can be deleted/overwritten/updated without problems, BUT after opening Lister, even if a specified plugin was not used, the files become locked, as if the lister modules have loaded in memory.

Does this mean that:

1) Unless the modules are loaded in memory there is no significant memory/resources used by these?
2) All lister modules are loaded at once or just some of them and the others when needed?
3) Are the modules unloaded from memory at some time during the session or the only possible clean-up is a shutdown and restart of TC?
4) Do all the plugin modules behave the same way or WCX modules do never get loaded in memory except temporarily just when used?
5) Do all WDX modules load at once at startup or not?
5) Are WFX modules, in general, pretty much resource hogs or are their requirements rather modest? (yes, it depends on the module's implementation, specifically, but in general terms it'd be an ok answer)
6) Do I have to worry about TC's loading time because of the use of too many plugins?

[Hacker]

the only possible clean-up is a shutdown and restart of TC?

You can also use cm_UnloadPlugins.

HTH
Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

TC loads lister plugins when they are matching the detect string, in the order in which they appear in the lister plugins configuration dialog. This is needed to determine whether a plugin supports a specific file, if the detect string isn't already giving the clue.

So in general, it's good to make a plugin as small and fast as possible.