The plugin architecture
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The plugin architecture used to create XPontus plugins is JPF(http://jpf.sourceforge.net). It uses something similar that what Eclipse was using before. Eclipse is now using a standard OSGI(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSGi) to provide plugins.

JPF requires a plugin descriptor(plugin.xml) which is placed in the folder src/main/java of every "plugin project" of XPontus. That XML file contains details about the plugin class and some metadata(author, etc.)

To implement a plugin, one has to extends org.java.plugin.Plugin(a JPF class)

Plugins activation
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XPontus plugins are activated by the class XPontusPluginManager which is located in the project xpontus_core under the package  net.sf.xpontus.controllers.impl

How are the plugins resolved?
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See at the bottom of the class XPontusPluginManager.
If the program is launched using Java Web Start, the application looks for plugins
- In the folder c:\documents and settings\username\.xpontus\version\plugins on windows
- In the folder /home/username/.xpontus/version/plugins on unix/linux it looks in the folder