Module name TWiki::Plugins PluginsDotPm Location TWIKIROOT/lib/TWiki/Plugins.pm Summary this is the plugin discoverer, loader and runner Primary Author AndreaSterbini CVS history CVS:lib/TWiki/Plugins.pm CVS alpha CVSget:lib/TWiki/Plugins.pm Contributing authors (see CVS History) Is Class NO First Release to be filled out

File Hierarchy   TWIKIROOT   lib   TWiki   Plugins.pm

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Purpose

To dicover, load, initialize and run all the plugins.

Used by

This module is primarily used to expose several hooks during several phases of the twiki execution.

Callback handlers with version

The column Version shows when the handler has been introduced.

Existing Plugin Hooks in latest Alpha

See PluginHandlersProposed for handlers that have been suggested but not implemented, and TWiki.InstalledPlugins for hooks and handlers active on TWikiDotOrg.

%PERLDOC{"TWiki::Plugins"}%

Contributors:
-- MartinCleaver - 23 Jun 2002
-- AndreaSterbini - 12 Sep 2003
-- PeterThoeny - 02 Feb 2004

Discussions

Has anyone noticed that a plugin does no know what version of a topic it is looking at? I'm going to add a $rev to the initPlugin in my test system, but even this is a continuation of a mess. To stop doing all this the hard way (I will need access to $meta, from 2-3 versions of a topic, and also know which i am displaying, and a few other things) I'd like to suggest that we begin looking at passing around a reference to a topic object. This TopicObject would contain references to all loaded information (as each version is loaded it is cached, and references to these cached bits are kept for the duration of the transaction (or more for mod_perl). Obviously there is a requested version/DateTime in this TopicObject, which would also allow us to display an object as it was back then, rather than INCLUDEing current topics when showing a previous version of a topic.

This work is being done for my workplaces iso9001 web, and will probably be extended to indlude the idea of documentation versions.

-- SvenDowideit - 16 Apr 2004

Somehow, I like the idea of the TopicObject

Anyway, if the plugin has access to the topic metadata, then is pretty easy to get the information.

-- RafaelAlvarez - 24 Aug 2004

I was thinking about the current mechanism to handle the plugins. Right now it first scans the plugins to register the handlers that the plugin can use, and then it calls only those plugins that has the hook defined.

If the idea in RefactorPluginApi of having a "Base Plugin" and make the other plugins to subclass it, then an improvement can be done: The base plugin could have an empty implementation of each handler, and for each hook call the handler in all the plugins. I have tested it, and the improve over calling an empty method over calling "defined &sub " is between 8% and 10% .

(more on that later)

-- RafaelAlvarez - 24 Aug 2004