• Preface: The described plugin-system below is currently implemented in dotproject.net, but it seems that it is dead. The described information could be usefull for Feng Office, but was not originally developed by me. I simply installed and used dotProject and I have written some plugins using theire system (as described below)

• TODO: What exactly are hooks and what are the differences between hooks and plugins

• Plugins in my way of thinking:
  1. are pieces of code, images, etc which extend the Feng Office functionality and introduce *new* things like a diary. A normal diary can be made as a document, but if I possibly want do some more things like searching inside or do some statistics etc, it is a good idea to capsule this information-centric-functionality into a plugin.
  2. In my way of thinking plugins normally should extend the horizontal menu in Feng Office (depends of the kind of plugin)
• Limitations of current plugin-system:
  1. One developer can overwrite code by accident of another developer, because every plugin is zipped and has inside the Feng Office-folder-structure. When two different plugins are deflated, which had changes in the same file, the last plugin wins (lost-update-problem)
  2. Every (major?) update of the Feng Office-distribution has a high potential of loosing plugin-functionality
• Must-Have-Features of a new plugin-system:
  1. installable, uninstallable, activatable, deactivateble, movable (in menu, but depends on type)
  2. different kinds of plugin-types like extends horizontal menu, extends context-menu, etc
  3. can be configurable (ideally also via web in admin-page)
  4. are able by themselves to create tables (when they are installed)
  5. are able by themselves to update tables (when a developer creates a new version)
  6. are able by themselves to delete tables (when they are uninstalled)
  7. provide information about themselves like, name, current_version, description, dependencies to user plugins, etc
• Architectural thoughts:
  • Folder-structure
    1. All plugins should reside in a single subfolder of Feng Office, ideally called plugins
    2. Each plugin creates its own top-folder (inside plugins), where all the stuff is, which is needed by the plugin
    3. There should be a naming-convention for creating the subfolder-name
  • Database-Design
    1. Each plugin is allowed to create tables, which are needed due to the plugin-operation
    2. There should be a naming convention for tables, created by a plugin, prefix, etc
    3. Feng Office should be improoved to use constraints (if it does not do already) to limit plugin-accidents
    4. Feng Office has to store some plugin-relevant information in an own table:
       • Name of plugin
       • Status of plugin (installed, installable)
       • State of plugin (activaed, deactivated)
       • Version of plugin
       • Storage-location of plugin (subfolder-name)
       • TODO
    5. This information must be checked againt the folder, when the plugin-administration-module is called to administer plugins
  • Class-Design
    1. There should be a setup.php in top of the plugins-folder to supply the methods and information needed during installation, administration, etc
    2. There should then be another entry-point into the plugin like an index.php or a class-file, which is instantiated(info provided by setup)
    3. TODO
  • Procedural things and flow
    • Installation of a new plugin
      1. [ADMIN] deploys a new plugin into the feng-plugins-folder, called diary (folder is then feng-base/plugins/com-example-diary-or-whatever)
      2. [ADMIN] browses then to feng-plugin-administration-page (module)
      3. [Feng Office] reads information from table to know about all plugins from last folder-scan and their status
      4. [Feng Office] reads then all subfolders in plugins-folder and determines a new one, which does not match against anything in the read table
      5. [Feng Office] because its new, it can only be installed. setup.php-information is read (array, or whatever) and some information presented (description)
      6. [Feng Office] checks dependecies to other plugins (and versions) and is everything is ok, shows install-button
      7. [ADMIN] clicks on install, after having read the description and developer-remarks
      8. [Feng Office] executes install-methods in setup-php, which should execute database-statements, etc
    • Upgrade a plugin to a newer version
      1. TODO
    • Remove a plugin
      1. TODO
    • Configure a plugin
      1. TODO
  • Code-snippets
    1. setup.php: (an example I wrote for my old dotProject-installation 5 years ago)

<?php
// MODULE CONFIGURATION DEFINITION
$config = array();
$config['mod_name'] = 'Diary'; 
$config['mod_setup_class'] = 'CSetupDiary';
$config['mod_version'] = '0.8';
$config['mod_config'] = false;                        // show 'configure'
//some more config-details

class CSetupDiary {

function remove() {                                   // run this method on uninstall process
    db_exec( "DROP TABLE diary;" );                   // remove the diary table from database

    return null;
  }


  function upgrade( $old_version ) { 

    switch ( $old_version ){
    case "0.9":
      //do some alter table commands
      return true;

    case "1.0":
      //do some alter table commands
      return true;

    default:
      return false;
    }
  }

  function install() {
    // prepare the creation of a dbTable -> create diary
    $sql = "CREATE TABLE diary ( " .          
      "  diary_id INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT" .
      ", diary_owner_id INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL" .
      ", diary_header VARCHAR(100)" .
      ", diary_main TEXT" .
      ", diary_date DATE" .
      ", diary_last_modified TIMESTAMP" .
      ", PRIMARY KEY  (diary_id)" .
      ", UNIQUE KEY diary_id (diary_id)" .
      ") TYPE=MyISAM;";

    db_exec( $sql ); db_error();                 // execute the queryString through feng-api

    return null;
  }
}
?>

fengOffice STUDIO is a collection of tools to allow the user to customize fengOffice and build new applications within the fengOffice framework. We will look at 4 major aspects of custom alterations of FengOffice:

1. Re-think the administration front page (W.I.P.)
2. Modules Management
3. Field Management (W.I.P.)
4. Module layout (W.I.P.)

In doing so, we will focus on the GUI performance, which shall:

• be intuitive by offering all available options at once
• require the minimum possible amounts of “clicks” to perform any given tasks

The first phase shall be a GUI re-designs as a functional re-thinking. The administration front-page shall present all that is available to the administrator at once. Possible designs include a common boxed layout that may appear very familiar to most administrators. In this layout similar tasks are grouped together in window-like boxes. In this layout, each of the tasks is illustrated by the 3 elements: icon, name, and description.

Fig:1 - administration front-page (W.I.P.)

The second phase shall allow managing modules. In this phase the STUDIO takes form. The modules management page is accessed directly from the Administration front-page, so EVERYTHING is at ONE click away. Modules management allows user to start a low level of customization, Modules are defined as one tab and all it contains, therefore a module has details, properties and access. As such those same parts should be presented to the user in one single page.

Fig. 2: the modules management page