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Purpose of this Module Type

Module Type plugin modules allow you to dynamically add new plugin module types to the plugin framework, generally building on other plugin modules. For example, a plugin developer could create a <dictionary> plugin module that is used to feed a dictionary service used by still other plugins.

Configuration

The root element for the Module Type plugin module is module-type. It allows the following attributes and child elements for configuration:

Attributes

Name	Required	Description	Default
class		The ModuleDescriptor class to instantiate when a new plugin module of this type is found.
disabled		Indicate whether the plugin module should be disabled by default (value='true') or enabled by default (value='false').	false
i18n-name-key		The localisation key for the human-readable name of the plugin module.
key		The identifier of the plugin module. This key must be unique within the plugin where it is defined. Sometimes you will need to uniquely identify a module. Do this with the module complete key. A module with key fred in a plugin with key com.example.modules will have a complete key of com.example.modules:fred. I.e. the identifier of the module type. This value will be used as the XML element name to match.	N/A
name		The human-readable name of the plugin module.
system		Indicates whether this plugin module is a system plugin module (value='true') or not (value='false'). Only available for non-OSGi plugins.	false

Elements

Example

Here is an example atlassian-plugin.xml file containing a plugin module type:

<atlassian-plugin name="Hello World" key="example.plugin.helloworld" plugins-version="2">
    <plugin-info>
        <description>A dictionary module type test</description>
        <vendor name="Atlassian Software Systems" url="http://www.atlassian.com"/>
        <version>1.0</version>
    </plugin-info>

    <module-type key="dictionary" class="example.plugin.DictionaryModuleDescriptor" />
</atlassian-plugin>

The Java code for DictionaryModuleDescriptor could look like this:

public class DictionaryModuleDescriptor extends AbstractModuleDescriptor<Dictionary>
{
    private String language;
    
    @Override
    public void init(Plugin plugin, Element element) throws PluginParseException
    {
        super.init(plugin, element);
        language = element.attributeValue("lang");
    }

    public Dictionary getModule()
    {
         return (Dictionary)((AutowireCapablePlugin)plugin).autowire(getModuleClass());
    }

    public String getLanguage()
    {
        return language;
    }
}

This will add the new module type 'dictionary' to the plugin framework, allowing other plugins to use the new module type. Here is a plugin that uses the new 'dictionary' module type:

<atlassian-plugin name="Hello World" key="example.plugin.helloworld" plugins-version="2">
    <plugin-info>
        <description>An english dictionary</description>
        <vendor name="Atlassian Software Systems" url="http://www.atlassian.com"/>
        <version>1.0</version>
    </plugin-info>

    <dictionary key="english" class="example.plugin.english.MyDictionary" />
</atlassian-plugin>

Notes

Some information to be aware of when developing or configuring a Module Type plugin module:

• The plugin that defines a new module type cannot use the module type in the Plugin Framework 2.1, but can in 2.2 or later.
• If you want to have control over the construction of the ModuleDescriptor, you can skip the 'module-type' module and make public a component registered against the ModuleDescriptorFactory interface:

  <component key="dictionaryFactory" class="example.plugin.DictionaryModuleDescriptorFactory" public="true">
    <interface>com.atlassian.plugin.ModuleDescriptorFactory</interface>
  </component>
  

  Ensure your ModuleDescriptorFactory implements com.atlassian.plugin.osgi.external.ListableModuleDescriptorFactory.

RELATED TOPICS

Writing Confluence Plugins
Installing and Configuring Plugins Manually

Information sourced from Plugin Framework documentation