Plugin API Discussions
Below thread is refactored out from
CalendarPluginDev.
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PeterThoeny - 29 Jun 2005
The timing for the addition of a "PluginAuthor" field is good, as it will help assess which plugins will make the migration to
DakarRelease.
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WillNorris - 26 Jun 2005
Argh, migration to
DakarRelease? We definitely need to avoid breaking existing Plugins that
play by the Plugin API rules. The Plugin API must not be a moving target, or it could not be called an API.
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PeterThoeny - 26 Jun 2005
I remember that many plugins that did run on Bejing did not run on Cairo anymore. It won't be that bad with the switch from Cairo to Dakar, I'm sure.
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FranzJosefSilli - 26 Jun 2005
franz, don't bet on it (or were you joking?)... the
internals have changed significantly from
CairoRelease, and thus any "naughty" plugins stand a much larger chance of not working... (however, i do have on my list of things to do to update many of the plugins, as part of my task of
MovePluginsIntoSVN)
sorry peter, i can sense your frustration. afaict, the single proposed API change has been reverted. do not (incorrectly) assume that the reason plugins from
CairoRelease won't work on
DakarRelease is because of an API change. plugins will have a migration problem because either they
bypassed the API or because the
API didn't provide the needed functionality. (i recall
ThomasWeigert writting about this on several topics during his transition to
CairoRelease.) now, whichever reason a plugin won't work on
DakarRelease is
irrelevant; the fact is that
many plugins won't work. if they're still maintained and/or useful, they'll need to be updated.
in addition to providing useful information about whether or not a plugin is being maintained, this would be helpful for porting to
DakarRelease.
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WillNorris - 26 Jun 2005
Its not as simple as that!
The
UserInfoPlugin has code that decides whether it runs under Cairo or Dakar,
but it still doens't work properly under Dakar. See my note in
DakarReleaseNotes on
UserInfoPlugin.
There are many things that can change apart from APIs.
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AntonAylward - 26 Jun 2005
I have to make a couple of points here:
- Any problems observed with plugins not working correctly on DEVELOP should be reported as bugs - otherwise how am I supposed to know there is a problem? So far I think we have fixed everything anyone has reported.
- I listed those public plugins that I thought might have problems, because they sidestep the published API, in DakarReleaseNotes.
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CrawfordCurrie - 27 Jun 2005
Crawford: Thanks for bringing this to an objective level. I saw a red flag with the word "migration to Dakar". As I stated, I do not see any issues if Plugins that
play by the rules continue to work. There are a few Plugin API changes described in
DakarReleaseNotes I do not feel comfortable with since it
can break Plugins that play by the rules. (tab vs spaces; meta data change in beforeSaveHandler)
Plugin authors who use unofficial function calls should enhance their Plugin to run on Cairo
and on Dakar with conditional code. That is especially important for the Plugins that ship with a TWiki release. See
SharedCodeDev on conditional code.
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PeterThoeny - 29 Jun 2005