The the Maxwell plug-in creates a shelf for quick access to certain plug-in features:

The buttons are:

FIRE: opens a floating FIRE viewport.
Create Embedded Material: creates a Maxwell layered material and assigns it to the current selection.
Create Referenced Material: creates a Maxwell referenced material and assigns it to the current selection.
Create an Assistant Material: creates a Maxwell Assistant material and assigns it to the current selection.
Create Maxwell Instance: creates a Maxwell instancer node using the selected polygon mesh.
Create Realflow RenderKit Mesher: prompts you to select a Realflow BIN particle file which will be used to create a RenderKit mesher node.
Create Realflow RenderKit Particles: prompts you to select a Realflow BIN particle file to be rendered using the particle procedural.
Create Maxwell Sea: creates a Maxwell Sea node.
Create Maxwell Boolean: creates a node that exports as a render boolean.
Create Maxwell Volumetric: creates a node used to preview and render Maxwell Volumetrics.
Create Maxwell Volumetric Modifier: creates a node that marks currently selected particles or nParticles to be rendered as Volumetric objects.
Create a BIN Mesh Loader: prompts you to select a Realflow BIN mesh file which will be loaded at render time.
Create MXS Reference: reference a Maxwell MXS scene file into the scene.
Create Maxwell Subdivision Modifier: creates a node that assigns a render time subdivision modifier to the current selection.
Create Maxwell Scatter Modifier: creates a Maxwell Scatter node and assigns it to the current selection.
Assign Custom Alpha Channels: opens a window that lets you assign custom alpha channels to the current selection.
Create Maxwell Grass: creates a Maxwell grass object on each of the selected meshes.
Export Geometry to MXS: exports the selected items to a MXS file which can then be referenced inside a scene. This is different from using the File -> Export menu, as it doesn't export render options, environment settings, cameras etc. It only exports the selected geometry and its materials.
Pack'N'Go: exports the scene and copies all its dependencies (textures, IES files, IOR files etc.) to a specified directory.
Render sequence in Maxwell: a quick way to render in Maxwell. It exports all the mxs files of the animation, launches Maxwell Render and sets it up so it renders one frame after the other.
Send Job To Network: exports the scene and opens the Maxwell network job wizard to prepare it for network rendering.
Focus To Selection: sets the focus plane of the currently selected camera to include the pivot point of the selected object. See this section for details.
Release License: it releases the license so it can be used by another user in your network (useful with floating licenses); the plugin will request a license the next time you try to render or export to mxs.
Open online documentation: opens the online plug-in documentation in a web browser.
Maxwell Light panel: opens Maxwell Light panel so you can modify the different lights from one place.
Show version information: displays an "about" dialog containing version information and copyright statements. The dialog also allows you to open the plug-in settings and check for updates.

The shelf is updated automatically when a plug-in upgrade modifies the buttons, you don't need to manually reload it when you install a newer plug-in.

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