What will I learn to do?
After you have discovered SPIP and become proficient in using the various features, additional functionality can be added e.g. the creation of a glossary, the introduction of a multimedia player into your articles, the provision of a newsletter to your readers etc...
The standard SPIP package does not offer these options but you can use plugins to achieve this. In this lesson you will learn:
What plugins are for
What type of functionality plugins offer
How to find plugins
You will also see a plugin example installation, the Multi-media player plugin
What are plugins for?
The use of plugins was a new feature introduced in version 1.9. Plugins make use of a new architecture frequently used in PHP architectures: code overriding. This code overriding enables the plugin to interface with the code loader and to add to or replace the existing code.
Plugins can therefore add to almost all of the SPIP functions. To implement this kind of enhancement it is necessary for the programmer to know SPIP well.
A plugin is a piece of software that can be added to enhance functionality already available in SPIP.
Plugins are developed for those who need a particular functionality not available in the standard SPIP package.
Why is it important to know how to install new plugins?
The gallery presentation you will get using the Thickbox plugin:
As the web master of your on-line magasine you will first have to learn and manage basic journalistic tasks: editing and publishing.
Once you have mastered these skills, your team or your readers will inevitably express new requirements such as:
adding video or audio tracks to articles
creating a glossary for your online publication
enabling the edition of articles without having to go through the private interface each time
Before plugins existed, when functionality needed to be amended or added, developers had to apply a "patch", which effectively changes the source code. Patching however made it very difficult to maintain the code as developers could never be sure that all the changes they had made would be maintained throughout subsequent SPIP upgrades.
Plugins allow functionality to evolve without having to rebuild everything from scratch.
A few example of plugins
Many plugins exist. Below are a few examples:
Plugins go through 4 stages:
1.‘Development’ version: development versions should never be installed into the production environment.
2.‘Experimental’: beta version. This version is not guaranteed to work;
3.‘Test’: the plugin is still in the testing phase; it may still have bugs;
4.‘Stable’: the plugin has been tested, and should not have any major bugs;
Only stable plugins should be installed into the production environment.
The ’multi-media player’ gives the ability to play audio and video tracks.http://spip-zone.info/spip.php?article18
The ’thickbox’ plugin enables the creation of modal windows for the presentation of images, slide shows or even another web page. http://spip-zone.info/spip.php?arti...
The ’Pencil’ plugin provides the ability to directly amend the editorial content on the public site: http://www.spip-contrib.net/Les-Crayons
The ’Restrict access per group’ provides the ability to restrict access to sections and their content by managing authorised user groups: http://www.spip-contrib.net/Le-plug...
The ’dw2’ plugin enables the counting of downloads in a SPIP site: http://www.koakidi.com/spip.php?rub...
The ’spip-list’ provides functionality for sending newsletters: http://bloog.net/?page=spip-listes
…
By visiting each of the above locations, you will see that documentation is always available with the downloads.
You can also find an comprehensive list of the available plugins at this address:
http://files.spip.org/spip-zone/
