README.md
Plugman
=======
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Plugman is a plugin manager that supports event driven communication
with plugins. It handles the loading, initialization and all
communications with the plugins.
Why use plugman?
----------------
Plugman's event driven approach lets you completely decouple the
application from the plugins. This is in my opinion a major advantage
because it lets you factor out functionality into plugins without much
added complexity.
There are several plugin managers available from RubyGems.org, but
none seems to let you use events as the means of communication. (The
ones that I have looked at are: plugin, gem\_plugin, little\_plugger,
plugin\_manager, and plugin-loader)
Installation
------------
The easiest way to get plugman is through rubygems
gem install plugman
or you can get it from <https://github.com/kjellm/plugman>.
Usage
-----
### Minimal Example
```ruby
require 'plugman'
class APlugin
def hello_world
puts "Hello World!"
end
end
class TheApp
def initialize
@plugman = Plugman.new(plugins: [APlugin.new])
end
def main
@plugman.notify :hello_world
end
end
```
### Using a Loader to load plugins
Note: Plugins that are to be loaded by plugman need to extend
Plugman::PluginBase.
In the minimal example, the application did all the loading and
initialization of the plugins. This is not very flexible. What you
usually would rather do is to initialize Plugman with a Loader to
handle all this.
Here's an example using the provided ConfigLoader:
```yaml
# $HOME/.app.yml
---
:plugins : ['app/plugin/logger']
```
```ruby
# app/lib/app.rb
require 'plugman'
require 'yaml'
class App
def initialize
rc = YAML.load_file("#{ENV['HOME']}/.app.yml")
@plugman = Plugman.new(loader: Plugman::ConfigLoader.new(rc[:plugins]))
@plugman.load_plugins
end
def main
@plugman.notify :system_launched
# ...
end
end
```
```ruby
# app-plugin-logger/lib/app/plugin/logger.rb
require 'logger'
class App
module Plugin
class Logger < Plugman::PluginBase
def initialize
@logger = ::Logger.new(STDERR)
end
def system_launched
@logger.info "The system has launched!"
end
end
end
end
```
### Passing extra information to the plugins when you notify them about events
Plugman lets you send arguments and/or blocks to plugins when calling #notify.
Here is how it works:
```ruby
# In a plugin:
def hello(world="")
str = "Hello" << world
str << yield if block_given?
puts str
end
# Somewhere in the app:
@plugman.notify(:hello) # => "Hello"
@plugman.notify(:hello, " world") # => "Hello world"
@plugman.notify(:hello, " world") { "!" } # => "Hello world!"
@plugman.notify(:hello) { "!" } # => "Hello!"
```
### Creating your own loader
You can easily create your own loader as a Loader is nothing but an
callable object (it responds to #call.)
Here is one that loads all ruby files in a directory:
```ruby
->(a) { Dir.glob('/plugins/are/here/*.rb').each {|f| require f}}
```
And here is one that uses Gem.find_files
```ruby
->(a) do
seen = {}
Gem.find_files('the_app/plugin/*', true).each do |f|
name = File.basename(f)
require name unless seen[f]
seen[f] = true
end
end
```
Bugs
----
Report bugs to <https://github.com/kjellm/plugman/issues>.
Author
------
Kjell-Magne Øierud <kjellm AT oierud DOT net>
License
-------
(The MIT License)
Copyright © 2011-2012 Kjell-Magne Øierud
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and
associated documentation files (the ‘Software’), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial
portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN
NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.