[ANSWERED]Can plugin inherit devices if the plugin ID change

I know that a plugin can iterate though all devices looking for a specific plugin ID. What I don't know is if it can then change the plugin ID to cause the device to be inherited by this plugin's ID.

Case in point: I'm taking over a plugin from another developer and I can either keep using their plugin ID… thus not requiring anyone that had previously installed the plugin from needing to do anything at all, or I could use a new ID which in normal cases would mean that users of the plugin would have to delete / recreate their devices from scratch. Because the new version of the plugin will be using exactly the same device preferences as before it would seem like a nice thing to inherit its older cousin devices outright.

So can a plugin do this, and secondly should it? Or have I missed some way in the device configuration UI to do this? Will just selecting the (same) plugin name there "hook it up" properly?

[jay (support)]

No, it can't currently. And our current opinion is no, it shouldn't. This offers some protection from rogue plugins trying to do things that will cause harm (mostly unintentionally). The plugin id in the Info.plist is the key that implies ownership.

Thanks for the opinion. I still have a decision to make but now I know that I don't need to write any code to try and assist.