Simple plugin example | ||
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This section explains how to write a plugin for Orion. It is intended for developers who want to extend Orion's functionality.
A plugin is an HTML file containing some JavaScript that knows how to connect to the Orion client. Plugins can be hosted on any web server and installed into Orion using their URL.
In order to be useful, a plugin should provide one or more services. When Orion needs a service contributed by a plugin, it loads the plugin inside an IFrame.
Orion currently supports a small set of extension points: service types that plugins can contribute to, in order to customize the client and add more functionality. These include things like:
For a full list of available services, see the Developer Guide.
Every plugin must include the following JavaScript library: plugin.js
You can copy-paste its contents into a <script> tag in your plugin, or load it externally like so:
<script src="plugin.js"></script>
The plugin.js file is also an AMD module, so you can alternatively load it through a module loader like RequireJS.
require('plugin', function(PluginProvider) { // ... });
Let's make a plugin that adds a button to the toolbar of the Orion editor. When clicked, it will reverse the selected text in the editor. This is not a very useful feature, but it'll be a good introduction to the concepts involved.
Create a new HTML file called reversePlugin.html with the following content:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8" /> <title>Reverse Plugin</title> </head> <body></body> </html>
What we have now isn't a plugin yet. It's just a bare-bones HTML file. The next step is to include the API we'll need to talk to Orion. Grab the plugin.js file (see What you need) and put it in the same folder as reversePlugin.html. Then add this inside the <head> tags of the HTML file:
<script src="plugin.js"></script>
Next, we'll add some code that connects our file to Orion. Add the following, again inside the <head> tags:
<script> window.onload = function() { var headers = { name: "My Plugin", version: "1.0", description: "My first Orion plugin." }; var provider = new orion.PluginProvider(headers); provider.connect(); }; </script>
At this point, we've got an honest-to-goodness Orion plugin, albeit one that does nothing. Let's go over the various parts in detail.
Now we're going to expose a service to Orion. We'll create and register a service with the orion.edit.command service type. Add the additional lines as shown:
window.onload = function() { var headers = {name: "My Plugin", version: "1.0", description: "My first Orion plugin."}; var provider = new orion.PluginProvider(headers); var serviceImpl = { }; var serviceProperties = { }; provider.registerService("orion.edit.command", serviceImpl, serviceProperties); provider.connect(); };
Let's go over what we have now:
We'll fill in the serviceImpl and serviceProperties objects with the actual details of the service. Change the serviceImpl object to look like this:
var serviceImpl = { run: function(text) { return text.split("").reverse().join(""); } };
Note that the functions defined in the service will depend on what service type you're contributing to. In our case, we're contributing to "orion.edit.command", which expects a run() function. (See the Developer Guide for a list of extension points and their API.)
Change the serviceProperties object to look like this:
var serviceProperties = { name: "Reverse Text", key: true, true // Ctrl+Shift+e };
Make sure that your copy of reversePlugin.html looks like this:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8" /> <title>Reverse Plugin</title> <script src="plugin.js"></script> <script> window.onload = function() { var headers = {name: "My Plugin", version: "1.0", description: "My first Orion plugin."}; var provider = new orion.PluginProvider(headers); var serviceImpl = { run: function(text) { return text.split("").reverse().join(""); } }; var serviceProperties = { name: "Reverse Text", key: true, true // Ctrl+Shift+e }; provider.registerService("orion.edit.command", serviceImpl, serviceProperties); provider.connect(); }; </script> </head> <body></body> </html>
First we need to host our plugin somewhere.
Now that you've got a URL for reversePlugin.html, install it into Orion:
Let's try it out.
Here are some existing plugins we've written. View their source code to see how they work:
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