J3.x:Triggering content plugins in your extension

2010-03-10T05:27:50Z

Kittymcooper: added the exact code to use content plugins

[[Category:Development]]
[[Category:Plugins]]

Using the plugin system in your addon is fairly simple. The most important part is good planning because, to some degree, you're defining an interface for other people to use.

To activate the plugins for your addon, you just have to use the following code:
<source lang="php">
$dispatcher =& JDispatcher::getInstance();
$results = $dispatcher->trigger('onSomething', $params);
</source>
This function calls everyplugin that has registered itself for the event 'onSomething' and hands over the array $param as parameter.

As a return value you get an array of results from these plugins. All this is of course optional, you could also use the system without parameters and/or a result.

You can also pass arguments by reference to allow plugins to edit the passed data. For example:
<source lang="php">
$dispatcher =& JDispatcher::getInstance();
$dispatcher->trigger('onSomething', &$params);
</source>

A common usage might be to use the content plugins if you have an editable field. This is the code that will do that:

<source lang="php">
$dispatcher =& JDispatcher::getInstance();
$item->text = & your_text_area_item;
$item->params = clone($params);
JPluginHelper::importPlugin('content');
$dispatcher->trigger('onPrepareContent', array (& $item, & $item->params, 0));
</source>

You might want to look at core components (for example com_content) for an example.

Joomla! Documentation - User contributions [en]

J3.x:Triggering content plugins in your extension