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1. What is the problem?

You have a custom requirement and you found that none of the built-in plugins provided by Joget Workflow nor plugins available in Marketplace are able to fulfill your requirement. 

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2. How to solve the problem?

Refer to the Plugin Types that are supported by Joget Workflow, find the most appropriate plugin type that can help you to fulfill the custom requirement.

Example 1: Develop a Datalist List Action plugin to display a button for generate form PDF.

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3. What is the input needed for your plugin?

Find out what information are needed by your plugin to function/work. Look at it from the user's perspective; how are you going to use the plugin. Then, look at it from a developer's perspective; to make the plugin reusable in more use cases.

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Example 1: To develop a PDF Download Datalist List Action plugin, we can consider providing the following as input.

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1. 1. Form ID : The form that will be used to generate the PDF file.

      Thai
      แบบฟอร์ม: แบบฟอร์มที่จะใช้ในการสร้างไฟล์ PDF

   2. Record ID : Use the id of the datalist List row or a column value to load the record.

      Thai
      ID เรคคอร์ด: ใช้ id ของแถวดาต้าลิสต์หรือค่าคอลัมน์เพื่อโหลดเรคคอร์ด

   3. File Name : File name of the the generated PDF file.

      Thai
      ชื่อไฟล์: ชื่อไฟล์ของไฟล์ PDF ที่สร้างขึ้น

   4. Formatting options : Options to format and customise the PDF output. 

      Thai
      ตัวเลือกการจัดรูปแบบ: ตัวเลือกในการจัดรูปแบบและปรับแต่งเอาต์พุต PDF

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1. 1. Datalist Binder List Data Store : We can reuse datalist binder List Data Store in our plugin to retrieve the data needed by the Gantt Chart.

      Thai
      ดาต้าลิสต์ BinderData Store: เราสามารถใช้ดาต้าลิสต์ Binder Data Store ในปลั๊กอินของเราเพื่อดึงข้อมูลที่ต้องการโดยแผนภูมิแกนต์

   2. Mapping : A field to map the columns that will be returned from the datalist binder List Data Store to the data needed by the Gantt Chart.

      Thai
      การแมป: ฟิลด์เพื่อแมปคอลัมน์ที่จะส่งคืนจากตัวยึดข้อมูลไปยังข้อมูลที่ต้องการโดยแผนภูมิแกนต์

   3. Styling : Options to style the Gantt Chart.

      Thai
      จัดแต่ง: ตัวเลือกเพื่อจัดสไตล์แผนภูมิแกนต์

Example 3: Hash Variable plugin does not provide interface for user to configure, but to develop a Bean Shell Hash Variable plugin, we need somewhere to put our Bean Shell script. We can reuse the Environment Variable to store our scripts. So the Hash Variable syntax will be a prefix with environment variable key.

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E.g. #beanshell.EnvironmentVariableKey[name=Joget&email=info@joget.org&message={form.sample.message?url}]#

4. What is the output and expected outcome of your plugin?

How and what a normal user (Not the admin user who use the plugin to provide functionality) will use and see your plugin result.

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Example 1: When PDF Download Datalist List Action is used as a datalist List row action or column action, a normal user will see a link to download the PDF file in every rows of a datalistList. Once the link is clicked, a PDF will be prompted to be downloaded.

When the plugin is used as a whole datalist List action, a zip file containing all the generated PDF of every selected rows will be prompted to be downloaded.

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5. Are there any resources/API that can be reused?

Always refer to existing plugins and tutorials to look for a similar plugin/plugin type that you can refer to whenever possible.  The Joget team will try their best to enrich the contents in the tutorials section.

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Example 1: To develop the PDF Download Datalist List Action plugin, we can reuse the methods in FormPdfUtil to generate a form as PDF. We can also refer to the source code of the Datalist List Form Data Delete Action plugin as well. Other than that, we can refer to the Export Form Email Tool on what kind of plugin properties options we can provide in the plugin as the Export Form Email Tool are using the methods in FormPdfUtil as well.

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Example 2: To develop a Gantt Chart Userview Menu plugin, we can refer to the source code of all the Userview Menu plugin. From there, we can have a better understanding on how to make a template for a plugin using FreeMakerFreeMarker syntax. 

Example 3: To develop Bean Shell Hash Variable plugin, we can refer to the source code of all the Hash Variable plugin and Bean Shell plugin. Especially, we can refer to Environment Variable Hash Variable plugin on how to retrieve environment variable using a variable key. We can also refer to Bean Shell Tool or Bean Shell Form Binder Data Store plugin on what to execute the script with Bean Shell interpreter.

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6. Prepare your development environment

a. You will need to have the Joget Open Source ready and built. We will use the "wflow-plugin-archetype" module to generate a maven project for our plugin.

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C:\Users\(your computer name)\.m2\repository\org\joget\wflow-core\"78.0-SNAPSHOT"

- Run the following for Window 

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-Sample Screenshot in Window:
Image RemovedImage Added

- Run the following for Linux or Mac

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- Sample Screenshot in Mac:                                                                                                                                        
 Image Modified

c. Open/Import the maven project with your favorite IDE. Joget team recommends NetBeans IDE.  

7. Just code it!

a. Extending the abstract class of a plugin type

Refer to the document of the plugin type listed in Plugin Types. Find the abstract class and interface that need to be extended and implemented by your plugin.

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b. Implement all the abstract methods

A plugin will have to implements the abstract method of Plugin Base Abstract Class and Interface and also the abstract method of the individual abstract class and interface for the plugin type. 

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• getCategory
• getClassName
• getDecoratedMenu
• getDescription
• getIcon
• getLabel
• getName
• getPropertyOptions
• getRenderPage
• getVersion
• isHomePageSupported

c. Manage the dependency libraries of your plugin

The generated plugin folder by "wflow-plugin-archetype" module is a maven project. So, we will using the Dependency Mechanism provided by Maven.

d. Make your plugin internationalization (i18n) ready

To make the plugin i18n ready, we need to create a message resource bundle property file for the plugin.

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public void start(BundleContext context) {
    registrationList = new ArrayList<ServiceRegistration>();

    //Register plugin here
    registrationList.add(context.registerService(MyPlugin.class.getName(), new MyPlugin(), null));
}

f. Build it and testing

Once you are done with all the steps above, you can build your project with your IDE using Maven. You can also run "mvn clean install" command in your project directory to build it. After building your project, a jar file is created under "target" folder in your plugin project folder. Upload the plugin jar to Manage Plugins to test your plugin.

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8. Take a step further, share it or sell it

You have completed a very useful plugin. Don't just keep it to yourself, share or sell your plugin in the Joget Marketplace or even better, you can write a tutorial in our Knowledge Base to share your effort with others. To share or sell your plugin, please send an email to info@joget.org.

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