Extensibility features for electronic communications

A system comprising:

• processor and memory resources;
• an email client;
• one or more available gadgets that provide extended email functionality for the email client and are configured according to one or more solution packages, wherein a gadget operates by:
• unpacking a solution package associated with the gadget, the solution package comprising execution code associated with the gadget and at least one activation trigger that causes execution of the execution code;
• and
• executing the extension code associated with the gadget;
• a parsing engine configured in part to parse a selected email message and identify one or more activation triggers, wherein each identified activation trigger comprises a regular expression as triggering criteria to trigger an injection of active content inline which causes execution of an associated extension code;
• and
• an interface to display the selected email message and any associated extension functionality provided by an activated gadget.

A computer storage device, including instructions which, when executed, comprise:

• examining a selected electronic communication item to identify one or more gadget triggers, including parsing portions of the selected electronic communication item to provide parsed portions and using a manifest to identify the one or more gadget triggers in at least one parsed portion, wherein the examining further including using one or more regular expressions as triggering criteria to trigger an injection of active content inline with the selected electronic communication item;
• receiving an interaction via a user interface to identify an activation trigger declared for a gadget that includes third party code and communicates with another resource to populate an identified portion of the selected electronic communication item with the active content according to parsed content that triggers the associated activation trigger;
• and
• implementing a gadget with an email client by:
• unpacking a solution package associated with the gadget, the solution package comprising extension code associated with the gadget and the manifest that includes one or more gadget triggers that trigger execution of the gadget code;
• and
• executing the extension code separate from the email client upon identifying the one or more gadget triggers as part of providing active content features inline with the selected electronic communication item, wherein executing the extension code embeds the active content in the selected electronic communication item.