plugins and workspace management


Plugins

Notions

Plugin

A plugin is an extension module. It is an external component, independent of the mainAmetys kernel, used to add new functionalities.

The Plugins manual lists most of the plugins available for Ametys, including plugin News and plugin Multimedia.

plugins are loaded when the application is started. Don't forget to restart the application after adding a new module.

Extension points

A notable feature ofAmetys is its extensibility. The plugins web site declares extensions in its configuration files to connect to extension points. Thanks to this mechanism, a developer can modify the behavior of each feature that defines an extension point.

At plugin, we define"features", which are groups of extension point implementations and components. When a"feature" is deactivated, the extension point implementations and components defined in this "feature" will no longer be active.

Show plugins

In the Developer tab of the administration area, there are 2 tools that allow you to display the plugins files that were loaded when the application was started:

  • Plugins by file: this view corresponds to the physical tree structure of plugins on the disk.
  • Plugins by extension point: this is a logical view where plugins are grouped by type.

Plugins per file

This view corresponds to the physical tree structure of plugins on the disk. You can navigate through the plugins tree to obtain a list of features and details of used or deactivated extensions:

Plugins per extension point

This view lists components and extension points, and you can navigate through the tree to go up to extensions, thenfeatures and finally plugins , where these extension points are configured.

Actions

From the Plugins by file and Plugin by extension point tools, you can activate/deactivatefeatures or select extension points where possible:

Please note that activating and deactivating features may cause your application to freeze. Please refer to the Integration Manual, in particular the Project Settings section, for further information.

Your changes will only take effect once you have confirmed them. To do this, click on the 'Save changes' button.

No graphic element of the plugins trees will be modified until your changes have been validated.

A message will remind you of this every time you make a change.

When you save your changes, a new message appears, warning you about the possible consequences of restarting the application due to the changes:

Click on OK, then validate (or not) the various pending changes:

A final pop-up warns you that the application is about to restart.

It may then be necessary to enter new configuration parameters, introduced by the selected extension point for example. In this case, the application will automatically redirect you to the parameter configuration screen.

Documentation

The documentation button lets you view the documentation for plugins. It's a context-sensitive action, so by selecting a given node in a view tree, you'll get the related documentation.

Workspaces

Notions

A workspace is an area of your application that is independent of other areas. A workspace is an application within the application, which can use the functionalities of the general application. For example, it can use the authentication methods defined in theAmetys kernel, or define new ones.

For example, the CMSAdministration interface and the Repository are workspaces available by default in theAmetys.

Display workspaces

Click on the Workspaces button in the Administration tab:

The Workspaces tool opens, listing the workspaces that were loaded when the application was started:

For each workspace, the theme used is displayed. This is the graphic rendering of the workspace.

The default workspace is the one that responds to URL root.

Example
http://monserveur.com/

This information can be modified in the runtime settings file.xml

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