aC forum: Question about development, plugins etc http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/777/ Recent posts on topic: Question about development, plugins etc en-us Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:43:01 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3691/#post3691 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3691/#post3691 Post #16 by businessman businessman Thanks for the advice, that makes sense now, thanks.

]]> Mon, 09 Oct 2006 02:26:43 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3690/#post3690 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3690/#post3690 Post #15 by tinycg tinycg Ok, businessman, you are getting caught up into the symantic's of language. I'm also not sure what programmers don't understand what a plugin is, or what an API is.

aC is NOT built for you, it is built for everyone and therefore MUST strive to meet the common demoninator and stay true to the reason it was created. To create and maintain a free open source project management system similar to basecamp.. but free.

Again, the plugin API has yet to be officially released, Ilija might have some things on paper, but as far as I know no one has seen them. As I understand it, he will NOT write all the plugins, his 'job' is to maintain aC, and the API is something that will allow others to contribute, and therefore not overwhelm him if a 'programmer' wants to add something that not everyone has a use for.

Firefox Extensions = Modules = Plugins .. they are all the same things basically, ways to extend the basic/core functionality of aC while keeping aC lean and mean for the average user. Another great example, Drupal, www.drupal.org, some of the leanest core code ever on the web, with an expansive modules/plugins system to ADD functionality to the core. Not everything is included in the core distribution but you can install other things to tweak it to your needs.

]]> Mon, 09 Oct 2006 02:01:31 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3683/#post3683 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3683/#post3683 Post #14 by businessman businessman I am not a normal user, I am a programmer/coder/web designer(developer), the only thing that is making me wonder, is I have dealt with plugins before and it was like the browser had to have a plugin to like run media player, or flash, or things like that, I will look into this.

The thing that makes me ask, is when I am creating a program, I have it in versions, if I have addon modules, that aren't related to the main program, I was calling them module's, but with an extension. So all the plugins are going to be able to hook up to the modules and the developer of active collab will be building all the things it can hook to as well.

]]> Sun, 08 Oct 2006 19:18:35 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3682/#post3682 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3682/#post3682 Post #13 by karunnt karunnt A plugin is a piece of code that cannot normally exist on its own. It is designed to integrate seamlessly into an application and provide some added piece of functionality.

Plugins allow software to be extended without becoming bloated.

Firefox has a plugin repository here: https://addons.mozilla.org/

A potential AC plugin may be an image gallery which would extend the file storage function but show thumbnails of images it contains.

A normal user need not worry about the internal working of a plugin as they are typically very easy to install.

]]> Sun, 08 Oct 2006 19:10:31 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3681/#post3681 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3681/#post3681 Post #12 by businessman businessman What do you mean though that's the part I am trying to understand. You say plugin and translation repository, I am not interested in the other languages really, I mean when you have a plugin setup, oh so you will have everything that can be downloaded for the plugins on the website, so you will end up also building all the stuff for the plugins seperately, is that what you mean.

Last question to is activecollab always going to be free?

]]> Sun, 08 Oct 2006 18:56:02 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3679/#post3679 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3679/#post3679 Post #11 by Ilija Studen Ilija Studen
businessman:
will they all be downloadable from your site, other third parties or users.

We'll provide plugin and translation repository on www.activecollab.com, but we can not force anyone to use it.

]]> Sun, 08 Oct 2006 18:29:01 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3676/#post3676 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3676/#post3676 Post #10 by businessman businessman will they all be downloadable from your site, other third parties or users.

]]> Sun, 08 Oct 2006 15:10:07 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3673/#post3673 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3673/#post3673 Post #9 by Ilija Studen Ilija Studen Only system plugins (basically, what you see now + time tracking and better issue management) will be shipped in the package.

All additional package you'll need to download and install.

]]> Sun, 08 Oct 2006 12:41:42 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3671/#post3671 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3671/#post3671 Post #8 by businessman businessman The thing I was wondering though is are the plugins, everything related to active collab, is there a way to use all the plugins at once I always liked trying to use the total package, so Iwould try to get everything that came with the program, will it work that way.

]]> Sun, 08 Oct 2006 12:24:59 UTC http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3669/#post3669 http://www.activecollab.com/forums/post/3669/#post3669 Post #7 by Ilija Studen Ilija Studen Plugins are mini applications that hook into the system and use its resources to do something. Good example would be bug tracker plugin:

* It is used per project to track bugs and other open issues
* Issues can be assigned to existing users (resource provided by the system)
* Issues can have due date (resource provided by the system)
* Issues can have notifications (resource provided by the system)
* Isseus can have comments (resource provided by the system)
* Issues can have attachments (resource provided by the system)

When you take a look at it like that you'll see that plugin developer needs just to do specific stuff and pull all of available resources together to work on the problem he is trying to solve.

Now, thats just one aspect of plugins. Plugins can be used to integrate with other services or applications, to provide additional tools for existing features (for instance, someone can come and write a plugin that lets user post one task in multiple projects at once).

If dope right, options are limitless ;)

Btw, I haven't actually figured out all the details and how deep plugins will be able to go (PHP is not Ruby or JavaScript so you can't override something that is already defined), will there be global event system etc. Open for suggestions :D

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