Open Plugin Framework for Node.js

This module is an extension-point based framework for loading plugins, inspired by Eclipse plugin system.

The scenario can explain why this module is developed:

Developer A made an excellent text editor which can be installed using

npm install xedit -g

Developer B is a language expert and he invents a new language. He loves xedit so much that he wants to make a plugin for it. A few days later, he published a module called xedit-lang-x.

User simply use

npm install xedit -g
npm install xedit-lang-x -g

than, xedit automatically recognized language x.

How it works

Concepts

Host

host is the consumer of extension instances.

Plugin

A plugin is a library/module providing a few extensions for certain extension-points.

ExtensionPoint

extension-point is the abstract name indicating a feature/function can be extended by an extension. The names are application specific, and is used as a contract between host and extensions.

Extension

extension provides specific logic to extend the feature/function defined by extension-point and consumed by host. The logic is provided by registering a factory function which creates an instance of the extension to implement the logic (providing methods, fields according to certain contract).

ExtensionName

There can be multiple extensions associated with a single extension-point, and each extension is identified by a name which must be unique per one extension-point.

Example

In the scenario above, xedit scans and loads plugins. In this way, xedit is called host in this framework. And xedit-lang-x is a plugin. A host will require js-plugins to manage plugins, while a plugin doesn't require js-plugins but need a special section in package.json to describe what the plugin provides.

Here's an example what xedit-lang-x written in the package.json:

{
    "name": "xedit-lang-x",
    ...
    "extensions": {
        "xedit:language": {
            "x": "./lib/xedit-lang-plugin"
        }
    }
}

In the example above, section extensions defines what extensions are provided by this module. The key of the hash is the extension-point name, and the value is a dictionary mapping from extension names to factories.

There are two ways to specify the factory. As in the above example ./lib/xedit-lang-plugin specifies the javascript file which exports the factory function. Or a plain name without embedded / indicates index.js which exports the factory function.

The file ./lib/xedit-lang-plugin.js will exports a factory function:

...

module.exports = function() {
    return new ExtensionLangX();
}

Alternatively, the factory can be specified in a more detailed form:

{
    "name": "xedit-lang-x",
    ...
    "extensions": {
        "xedit:language": {
            "x": {
              "module": "./lib/xedit-lang-multi-plugin",
              "object": "langx"
            }
        }
    }
}

The above example specifies a javascript module which is interpreted the same way described above except the module exports a dictionary instead of a function, and use object to specify the key in the dictionary to retrieve the factory function.

In this case, the file ./lib/xedit-lang-multi-plugin.js will exports an dictionary:

...
module.exports = {
    "langx": function() { return new ExtensionLangX(); },
};

Factory function

The factory function can be defined in synchronous or asynchronous way:

function extensionFactoryAsync(data, host, info, callback) { }
function extensionFactorySync(data, host, info) { }

For parameters:

• data: the opaque data provided by host (via options calling connect) when connecting the extension;
• host: the host object
• info: is an object defining extension-point and name of extension:

{
    "extension": "extension-point",
    "name": "extension-name",
}

When callback is specified, the factory should return extension instance to callback which is defined as function callback(err, instance). Without callback, the instance should be returned immediately.

Loading plugins

When xedit starts, it uses js-plugins to scan all installed modules and find out all available extensions from package.json files. When it is going to load a language plugin, it uses extension-point name xedit:language to load all matched extensions.

By default, js-plugins scans the following locations in sequence (latter ones may override former ones):

• node_prefix/lib/node_modules/*/package.json
• $HOME/.node_libraries/*/package.json
• $HOME/.node_modules/*/package.json
• require.main.paths/*/package.json
• require.main.paths[0]/package.json

Usage

host side

js-plugins provides a simple class Plugins:

Simplest Usage

var pluginManager = require('js-plugins').instance;
pluginManager.scan();
pluginManager.connect(host, extensionPoint, options, function (err, instance) {});

More complicated

var Plugins = require('js-plugins');

// create own instance instead of using the default one
var pluginManager = new Plugins();

From pluginManager, we can

Register a plugin

pluginManager.register(extensionPoint, name, factory);

to register a plugin mapped to extensionPoint/name.

Connect extensions

pluginManager.connect(host, extensionPoint, options, callback)

The parameters are defined as:

• host: the host instance
• extensionPoint: name of extension-point
• options: a hash defined as
  • data: passed to extension factory as the first argument
  • multi: when true, connect all available extensions registered to the same extension-point, when false, the first extension is connected
  • name: when is a string, explicitly specify the name of the extension, when is an array, names are iterated until an extension is connected
  • required: when true, error is thrown if no extensions found
• callback: defined as function (err, extensions), it is possible extenions is a single instance or an array when multi is true.

Scan directories

pluginManager.scanSubdirs(dirs)

dirs is an array of directories, under each the first level sub-directories are scanned for package.json.

Scan all default directory

pluginManager.scan()

It scans all default directories in the sequence described above. The latter modules may override the former ones if the same extension-point + name is registered.

Plugins provides a global instance which can be accessed using Plugins.instance. All methods are promoted under Plugins directly. E.g. Plugins.scan is equivalent to Plugins.instance.scan. The recommended practise is to use the global instance as much as possible, and invoke Plugins.scan once at application start-up.

plugin side

See above example of xedit-lang-x about writing a plugin.

License

MIT/X11 License