Plugin Authoring

PhoneGap Day SF 2014

Jesse MacFadyen
aka @purplecabbage

About Me

  • PhoneGap developer since 2008
  • Can't believe it's been that long.
  • Just moved to San Francisco, from Vancouver

Who has used cordova plugins?

  • Everyone, you have to now.
  • Since 3.0, more than a year ago

// Install via registry
cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.device
cordova plugin rm org.apache.cordova.device

// OR via local
cordova plugin add Repos/cordova/cordova-plugin-device
cordova plugin ls
cordova plugin rm org.apache.cordova.device

// OR github
cordova plugin add http://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-device
cordova plugin ls
cordova plugin rm org.apache.cordova.device

Who has used plugman

  • Everyone, you have to now, but you may not even know you are.
  • Plugman is a node lib that does the dirty work of managing plugins
  • cordova-cli uses plugman 

plugman install --plugin org.apache.cordova.device --platform wp8 
--project .

The 'core' plugins

  • battery-status
  • camera
  • console
  • contacts
  • device
  • device-motion
  • device-orientation
  • dialogs
  • file
  • file-transfer
  • ... some others, more to come ...

Plugin Discovery

  • http://plugins.cordova.io/
  • http://plugreg.com/plugins
  • https://build.phonegap.com/plugins

Plugin Authoring

plugin.xml defines your plugin

  • a plugin id for registration, add/rm
  • a version number, author, repo, similar to package.json
  • a list of platforms and native headers, source files, resources, javascript files
  • configuration items, permission requirements
  • js-modules - the js entry point for your plugin

Plugman can help!


Create A Plugin
---------------

    $ plugman create --name  --plugin_id  --plugin_version  [--path ] [--variable NAME=VALUE]

Parameters:

 - : A Name for a Plugin
 - : An ID for the plugin, ex: org.bar.foo
 - : A version for the plugin, ex: 0.0.0
 - variable NAME=VALUE: Extra variables such as description or Author
                    
plugman create --name rapture --plugin_id com.risingj.phonegap.rapture --plugin_version 0.0.1 --path .

A plugin walk-through

https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-device

Demo : rapture

Save a screenshot of the app to the photo-roll

Demo: Debugging a plugin

Involving an IDE, XCode or Visual Studio

Docs, Tests, and all that

  • Of course you should include docs, so users know how to use your plugin. Look at any of the 'core' plugins for best practices.
  • Tests can be written in Jasmine 2.0, all core plugins have adopted a strategy of having a dependent -test plugin which is installed separately and runs your tests

Questions?

twitter.com/purplecabbage

One more thing, or a few ...

  • Some platforms support plugins that are separate projects
  • Some plugins reference third party libraries.
  • Lots to discover with plugin hooks, for when you need to do extra work when the plugin is installed, or the project is being built.