Plugins And Making Your Own

Plugins and making your own Lambert Beekhuis Lead developer at DOP

Why plugins?
Re-use common functionality
For yourself...in multiple projects
Or better...for the symfony community
Sharing/learning
How should I build a Plugin?

Plugins as of today (ok, Thursday 11 th of september) Stats 269 plugins 688 releases 134 developers 4104 users symfony 1.0 symfony 1.1 symfony 1.2 All 231 123 60 Bound to Propel 75 39 19 Bound to Doctrine 6 2 1

Popular plugins
Popular Plugins on 2007/08/14top-20-symfony-plugins (symfony-project blog top-20-symfony-plugins)
1. sfSimpleCMSPlugin
2. sfGuardPlugin
3. sfDoctrinePlugin
4. sfPropelActAsNestedSetBehaviorPlugin
5. sfMediaLibraryPlugin
6. sfSimpleBlogPlugin
7. sfSimpleForumPlugin
8. sfFeed2Plugin
9. sfgWidgetsPlugin
10. sfThumbnailPlugin
11. sfUJSPlugin
12. sfControlPanelPlugin
13. sfFormValidationPlugin
14. sfMogileFSPlugin
15. sfLightboxPlugin
16. sfCaptchaPlugin
17. sfNiftyPlugin
18. sfPrototypeWindowPlugin
19. sfPropelLoadbalancerPlugin
20. sfSavvyPlugin
21. sfYzClientSideValidationPlugin
Today (2009/09/11)
sfGuardPlugin
Authorisation
sfSimpleCMSPlugin
Content Management
sfDoctrinePlugin
Doctrine ORM
sfPropelActAsNestedSetBehaviorPlugin
Propel-trees
sfLucenePlugin
Searching
sfThumbnailPlugin
Thumbnails/resizing
sfMediaLibraryPlugin
Manage web-assets (images, PDF, flash objects)
sfExtjs2Plugin
Possible to write external JavaScript

Top down development ‘ it works’ is not enough! Good structure!

Developing cycles
Development - cycle
Idea or requirements
Design/principle/philosofie
Coding
Testing
Documentation
Maintenance
Comments....
Fun part
Prior to coding or ...?
Lot of focus (to much?)
Do you test systematically?
Essential! often ‘forgotten’!
Not a fun part...but with the community is much better!

Talking as a consultant.... Urgent Not urgent Important Not important

Used for development Urgent Not urgent Important ‘ It works’ Debugging Software structure Documentation Refactoring Not important Features never used

Plugins
Make a plugin:
Independant of your application
Upgradable
Customizable
PHP PHP Symfony Database ORM Your Application plugin plugin customize customize plugin customize

Plugin - basics
A plugin can contains all options grouped,
(similar to in your application)
Config
Config.php
Data
Fixtures
Lib
Helper/
Model/ schema.yml: propel: _attributes: { package plugins.lbSaasPlugin.lib.model }
Others (e.g. Filters)
Modules
Actions
Templates
Validate
Config
Module.yml
View.yml
Enable a plugin in your application
Settings.yml
Application-config/app.yml
New in symfony 1.1
Handle plugin dependencies at installation
Customizing the plugin-schema
all: lb_saas_plugin: enable_saas_filter: on # switch the extra Saas-filter on/off saas_profile_class: Client # PHP-object name for Saas-object saas_profile_field_name: saas_id all: .settings: enabled_modules: [default, sfGuardAuth]

Installing a plugin - basics
symfony 1.0
Install a plugin
> cd myproject > php symfony plugin-install channelName/pluginName > php symfony cc
Enable modules in your application:
In: apps/ myApplication /config/settings.yml
All: .settings: enabled_modules: [ yourPluginModule ]
Follow additional instructions from readme
Clear cache
> php symfony cc
symfony 1.1
Install a plugin
> cd myproject > php symfony plugin:install pluginName

Based on the ‘SaasPlugin’
‘ Software as a Service’ authentication
User has access to one or more Saas-en
Extension on sfGuardPlugin
Clean URLs e.g. www.application.comsaasOnemoduleaction (after yesterday: saasOne.application.commoduleaction)
Administration interfaces for
Application admin
‘ saasAdmin’
Limit data-retrieval for the selected Saas (based on Propel right now)

Customizing a Plugin
Rule
never alter the code found in the plugins/ directory
use settings
that can be changed in the application app.yml
Replace functions in your application
create a module of the same name in your own application.
Allow replacing
Create ‘empty’ actions/models in your plugin, e.g.
Actions
Model

Replacing model functions plugins/xxxPlugin/lib/model/om/BasexxxObject.php plugins/xxxPlugin/lib/model/map/xxxObjectMapBuilder.php plugins/xxxPlugin/lib/model/xxxObject.php plugins/xxxPlugin/lib/model/om/BasexxxObject.php plugins/xxxPlugin/lib/model/map/xxxObjectMapBuilder.php plugins/xxxPlugin/lib/model/xxxObject.php plugins/xxxPlugin/lib/model /plugin/ PluginxxxObject.php class pluginxxxObject extends BasexxxObject { // your plugin functions } class xxxObject extends pluginxxxObject { // empty } Generated by ORM (propel) (do not touch) Your functions Can be replaced in your application- module

Replacing plugin functions
Add empty module in your application
Add a template in this module
Add security.yml in your application
Add actions (requires proper plugin setup)
Add model-classes in your application
Requires proper plugin-setup

Other ways – routing/filters/...
Routing ‘injection’, e.g. in ‘user’ public static function add_default_saas_routes { $r = sfRouting::getInstance(); $r->prependRoute('saas_default', /:clientslug/s/:module/:action/*');
Use an additional filter for global functions (e.g. Filters the URL and checks against allowed Saas)
Your appliction/config/filters.yml rendering: ~ web_debug: ~ saas: class: saasFilter condition: %APP_LB_SAAS_PLUGIN_ENABLE_SAAS_FILTER% security: ~ # generally, you will want to insert your own filters here cache: ~ common: ~ flash: ~ execution: ~

Deploying plugins
For own purpose
Use SVN:external for use in multiple projects
Publish as symfony-project.org
Define the new Plugin at www.symfony-project.org/plugin/new
Naming conventions
Propel dependency
E.g sfPropelActAsNestedSetBehaviorPlugin
First two letters/initials can be your initials (or just use sf)
E.g. dwPrototypeTooltipPlugin
Define a proper readme!
Select a license
add a package.xml file at the root of the plug-in directory
Upload your PEAR package

Plugins - conclusions
Powerfull way to extend the framework functions
Many plugins available
Usefullness and quality depends
As of today, not easy to find usefullness and quality symfony-project.org
Many options for customization
If Plugin is developed correctly!

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Plugins And Making Your Own

by Lambert Beekhuis

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