Admin plugins integration
Commit 281e6dc6941c0987b75a8777df30b84928f44d6d (as well as 132697c2184a4a89fd3ca16d327bbe47a9644d09) introduced the possibility to dynamically load access to plugins admin section into Typo administration. Links to plugins admin zone are displayed into the admin/themes zone. This is – for now – fairly limited, but we’re working on extending it.
This is important to us since Typo has always been missing a nice plugin API. This is a first step towards something bigger, even thoug we don’t know how big it’s going to be yet.
I’ve released a quick proof of concept using a contact form plugin. It’s really simple, lacks lots of functionnalities one could expect from such a plugin but… it’s a POC and I’ll update it later. To test it, you need to be following our development branch, and update to the latest commit.
First, install Typo Contact Form plugin on your Typo instance:
./script/plugins install http://github.com/fdv/typo_plugin_contact_form.gitThen restart your Typo application.
You can now access the contact form using: http://your blog url/contact_form Administration: http://your blog url]/admin/contact_form
How can I integrate my plugins into Typo administration?
It’s fairly easy.
Typo plugins are just plain Rails plugins.
To have their admin detected, they need to be called typo_plugin_some_name. They should just include a lib/app/controllers/admin/some_name_controller.rb
I recommend you to start with Typo Contact Form code, to make your own plugins Typo compliant.
More to come very soon![…]
Typo plugins: what's next?
If you’re following the trunk, you may have noticed that many plugins have moved from the core to svn:externals. Source have been relocated into the new Typo official plugins repository. As I said a few weeks ago in The futur of Typo sidebar plugins, we’re only going to keep a few plugins in the core. The complete list is:
- Archives.
- Amazon.
- Categories.
- Static.
- Tags.
- XML Syndication.
And now, what’s next? As we now have our official plugins repository, I’ve been thinking about giving Typo a plugin manager. The manager will get a XML file with the official plugins list. Users will install plugins in 1 click.
How will it work? Very simply. The plugin manager will just run script/plugin install myplugin, and here you are.[…]
The future of Typo sidebar plugins
A French translation is avaliable on my personal blog
Between 4.0 and 4.1, there were lots of changes in Typo sidebar plugins architecture. Plugins have been rewriten to become basic rails plugins one can install with script/plugin install {#PLUGIN_SOURCE_URI}. This is aimed at removing some sidebr plugins from the trunk and create an official Typo plugin repository.
Why should we do this? After all, the more functionality you have in a program, the better it is, isn’t it ?
Well, this is not always true. Here are the 4 main reasons :
<li>Typo is somewhat heavy for what it does, and too many plugins is part of the issue.</li>
<li>People need to wait for a Typo release every time a service changes its API. This won't happen anymore. We just fix the plugin and users can update.</li>
<li>I don't think users use both Delicious AND Magnolia. And I wonder how much people really use the xbox card stuff. If code is not used, it doesn't need to be there.</li>
<li>We want to give plugin authors some visibility. The repository and <a href="http://trac.typosphere.org/wiki/Pluginslist">plugin directory</a> will help this.</li>
Here is the plugin list we’re going to keep in the trunk :
<li>Archives. This one will be activated in the default install.</li>
<li>Amazon. It may seem odd to keep it, but it's the best example we have of interaction between a Typo text filter and a sidebar plugin.</li>
<li>Categories. Activated in the default install.</li>
<li>Recent comments</li>
<li>Static. A Typo developers blogroll will keep being activated by default.</li>
<li>Tags.</li>
<li>XML syndication. Activated in the default install.</li>
We’re starting moving the less used plugins tonight, with Audioscrobbler and Xbox Live. The whole change will be done step by step before the next release.
We know that it may break blogs using the trunk, just like this one or my own blog, and some people will complain. Please, before doing so, remember that running off the trunk is always at your own risk.[…]
