AFC makes creating Acrobat plug-ins easy and pleasant.  Instead of having to worry about using a complex 'C' API, given in the original SDK, you now have the option to use ICE's AFC to help make the process of plug-in development hassle free (or as close as we can make it). 

AFC is a comprehensive set of C++ classes, which wrap around the existing Acrobat Plug-in SDK and give the developer an object oriented API instead of the old C interface.  This means that you will still have all the functionality of the SDK but using AFC you will have the option to code your entire project using an object oriented language (C++).

The idea of creating an object-oriented interface came from over 5 years of development experience.  Our pdf team has worked extensively with the pdf format and also with creating plug-ins for Acrobat products.  It's from that experience from which the idea sprang, we felt so strongly about the idea to have the OO API we went ahead and developed one!  

The existing Acrobat SDK consists of a fairly extensive and complex set of functions and structures, this can be intimidating and complicated for a new developer to pick up. A complex initialization process and extensive use of static functions is just a couple of the headaches an Acrobat Plug-in developer has to face. With our experience as our guide we created AFC with this in mind.  It should be noted that we have not attempted to define new functions or interfaces in the AFC classes because we feel strongly that most of the general functionality is already there.  We just want to make the library more easily access able to everyone, especially new developers.

 To use an analogy, the relationship between AFC and the Acrobat Plug-in SDK (and PDF libraries) is similar to the relationship between MFC and the Win32 API provided by Microsoft.  AFC is simply a wrapper that makes programming Acrobat Plug-ins easier and more efficient. 

For a better idea of the AFC's design please see the Architectural Overview which contains a detailed description of the architecture.