In an effort to keep the size footprint of the 4D installer as small as possible, 4D components and plugins will not be included with 4D 21.

In previous version, plugins were included in a PLUGINS folder located next to the installed 4D and 4D Server folders. Overtime, the plugin features have been integrated into 4D as native features. The remaining 4D plugins have been taken out of the installer and are available for download on the download site at product-download.4d.com.

4D was installed with various components that not everyone was utilizing. With the new dependency structure, dependencies like components can be referenced with a local path or a github repository. Utilizing the github repository referencing, the components are instead published online from the 4D Github at github.com/4d. The previously installed components can be added through the dependency manager from the Menu Bar > Design > Project Dependencies where they list these components by default. The components can be downloaded from the github page and added as a local dependency if needed.