I’ve been using VirtualBox a lot recently, mostly for programming and testing applications on different platforms, without actually having to restart my laptop.  After I saw that there was no VirtualBox plugin, I thought that this would be the perfect plugin to write.

After a couple weeks I have built a nice, stable GNOME Do plugin for managing VirtualBox virtual machines.  The plugin allows GNOME Do to perform actions on your saved virtual machines.  The plugin will index the current state of your VM and only allow you to perform relevant actions as well.  For example, if you have a VM that’s currently powered off, the only actions Do will show you are to either turn on the VM or revert to a saved state (if there is one).  For VM’s that are currently running, you can pause, turn off, save state, or take a snapshot.  Dynamic modifier items also allow you to start a VM in either headless mode, or GUI mode.

I’ve made a small YouTube video showing the various actions that are exposed to GNOME Do through this plugin.

My plugin was finally accepted into the Community branch of GNOME Do’s plugins.  I’m still attempting to get it into the official branch, as I’ve agreed to maintain it, and have gone through multiple code reviews to make sure the plugin meets coding and performance standards.  Look out for this plugin to be available with the next release of GNOME Do.