Plugins

Plugins in POS are collections of classes that will only be loaded if the plugin is enabled. In some cases like input parsing, all classes that descend from a given parent class are automatically loaded when POS runs. This kind of module becomes functional as soon as the plugin is enabled. In other cases, classes provided by a plugin will show up in configuration options where a user can choose one of the default classes or a replacement provided by a plugin.

At minimum, a plugin should have:

• A directory under pos/is4c/plugins/
• And a class extending Plugin whose name matches the directory
  • For example, a plugin folder named "MyPlugin" should contain a file named "MyPlugin.php" which defines the class "MyPlugin".

The remainder of the plugin file/directory structure is entirely up to the author.

Plugins should be free of side-effects when included. The unit test PluginsTest.php will verify all plugins (enabled or not).

Packaging a plugin with Composer

Packaging your plugin with composer makes it easier for other users to install and update your plugin.

• First, get Composer.
• Second, create a new github repo to hold your plugin
• Third, in your new repo run composer init
  • Set the type of your package to corepos-lane-plugin
  • Require the corepos/composer-installer package as a depedency
• Fourth, add or write your plugin's PHP files.

The MemberCard plugin is a simple example that includes a few additional, optional bits that appear in many plugins.

• The noauto directory contains unit testing scripts. The directory name is chosen to exclude those files from CORE's normal class autoloading.
  • noauto/bootstrap.php contains mock versions of CORE API classes
  • noauto/self.php loads your plugin's classes
  • noauto/Test.php contains PHPUnit tests.
• The phpunit.xml file tells PHPunit about the test scripts in noauto
• The composer.json file contains an extra autoload configuration "exclude-from-classmap": ["/*.php", "/noauto/"]. This tells Composer not to autoload your plugin classes; CORE will be responsible for autoloading them instead.