Plugins

Some components may want to offer some extensibilities. For this, they use a plugin mechanism based on the injection method. To offer an extension point for plugins, a component needs to provide a public method that takes an instance of org.exoplatform.container.xml. ComponentPlugin as a parameter.

Plugins enable you to provide the structured configuration outside the original declaration of the component. This is the main way to customize eXo Platform to your needs.

You can have a look at the configuration of the TaxonomyPlugin of the TaxonomyService as below:




<external-component-plugins>

  <target-component>org.exoplatform.services.cms.taxonomy.TaxonomyService</target-component>

  <component-plugin>

    <name>predefinedTaxonomyPlugin</name>

    <set-method>addTaxonomyPlugin</set-method>

    <type>org.exoplatform.services.cms.taxonomy.impl.TaxonomyPlugin</type>

    <init-params><!-- ... --></init-params>

  </component-plugin>

</external-component-plugins>

The <target-component> defines components that host the extension point. The configuration is injected by the container using the method defined in <set-method> (addTaxonomyPlugin(). The method accepts exactly one argument of the org.exoplatform.services. cms.categories.impl.TaxonomyPlugin type.

The content of <init-params> is interpreted by the TaxonomyPlugin object.