plugin-info.md

Using the PluginInfo Class Inside Your plugin.php for ILIAS Plugin

The PluginInfo class streamlines the management and retrieval of metadata information from a composer.json file, simplifying ILIAS plugin development. This class allows you to define essential plugin metadata within the composer.json file, making it more convenient to maintain and update this information as needed.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Updating composer.json
3. Usage: plugin.php

1. Introduction

When creating plugins for ILIAS, it's crucial to provide metadata information about your plugin, such as its ID, version, and compatibility with various ILIAS versions. Traditionally, this metadata is stored in the plugin.php file. However, with the increasing adoption of Composer as a package manager in the ILIAS community, you could now conveniently store this information in the composer.json file. The PluginInfo class is specifically designed to be utilized within your plugin.php file in ILIAS plugins. It simplifies the process of extracting metadata information from the composer.json file, reducing the need to update both plugin.php and composer.json separately.

2. Updating composer.json

To start leveraging the PluginInfo class, ensure that your composer.json file contains the necessary metadata. Therefor you can copy the existing information from your plugin.php file and paste it into the composer.json file.

{
    "authors": [
        {
            "name": "Your Name",
            "email": "[email protected]"
        }
    ],
    "extra": {
        "ilias-plugin": {
            "id": "your-plugin-id",
            "version": "1.0.0",
            "min_version": "5.4.0",
            "max_version": "6.0.0"
        }
    }
}

3. Usage: plugin.php

To use the PluginInfo class in your plugin.php file, replace the content of the plugin.php with the following informations:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

use Thojou\ILIAS\Plugin\Utils\Info\PluginInfo;

$pluginInfo = PluginInfo::resolve(__DIR__ . '/composer.json');
extract($pluginInfo);

Now all required variables are defined inside the plugin.php file.

By following these guidelines and using the PluginInfo class within your plugin.php file, you can efficiently manage and access essential plugin metadata during ILIAS plugin development. This approach simplifies the maintenance of plugin information, as changes can be made directly in the composer.json file.