'Best Practices for Elgg Plugin Developers' Cash Costello #ECSF

Best Practices for Elgg Plugin Developers Cash Costello ElggCamp San Francisco

About MeElgg core developerAuthor of Elgg Social Networking 1.8Employed by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL)R&D in machine learningDriving force behind JHU/APLs collaborative platform built on Elgg

1. Namespace your functions, classes, actions, views, CSS, JavaScript

2. Make dependencies between plugins explicit Plugin manifest, function_exists(), elgg_is_active_plugin()

3. Create a site customization plugin as a catch all for small modifications Maintain a readme with list of customizations!

4. Keep your plugins start.php trimelgg_register_library(), elgg_load_library(), class with static methods

5. Use inheritance with Elggs data modelRemember to unregister your class when your plugin is disabled using the deactivate.php script with update_subtype()

6. Document what metadata is used with your entities@property in documentation of class or use getter/setter methods

7. Avoid using many metadata key-value pairs with elgg_get_entities*()

8. Use Elggs functions and classes when interacting with the data model

9. Be aware that setting metadata on an entity clears Elggs database cache

10. Use relationships to connect entitiesNot metadata!

11. Do not create large views

12. Create views that correspond to visual elementsAlso look for common elements that can be reused

13. Use the core views and CSS classes whenever possible

14. Learn the principles behind Elggs new HTML/ CSS Example: CSS selectors should not cross element boundaries

15. Test with non-admin user and while logged out

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'Best Practices for Elgg Plugin Developers' Cash Costello #ECSF

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