Heedy Plugin Template

This repository offers a template to use when creating a heedy plugin. It sets up a basic plugin structure and build system that simplifies testing and deployment.

Things to Modify

To customize the template to your needs, first decide:

• What will the plugin name be? The name has no spaces (use underscores or dashes), so myplugin is fine, my plugin is not. Keep it simple, since it will be used in urls.
• Will the plugin have a frontend component? That is, will it alter the UI shown to users in the browser?
• Will it have a backend server? That is, will the plugin need to do things in the background, even when no users are currently logged in?

Once you have a good idea here, follow these steps:

1. Run make rename PLUGIN_NAME=myplugin with myplugin replaced with your plugin's name
2. If the plugin does not have a frontend component, delete the frontend folder. If the plugin does not have a backend component, delete the backend folder.
3. Edit heedy.conf:
   • If your plugin does not include a frontend component, remove frontend = "myplugin/main.js
   • if your plugin does not include a backend component, remove the entire run "backend" clause and remove the routes= {} element. If your plugin has a backend server, but doesn't expose an API, delete just the routes element.
   • If the plugin does not expose an app/doesn't have a backend server, delete the app clause (it is commented out by default).

Debugging your Plugin

Once you have adapted the template to your plugin's needs in the previous section, you will want to build the plugin, to make sure things work.

Start by downloading a version of heedy to the local folder, and naming it heedy. Having heedy in PATH will also work.

Then, to prepare for testing, run:

make debug

This will create the dist folder, where your plugin is prepared for distribution, and a testdb folder where a testing heedy database is created.

To test your plugin, you will now run heedy using the database in testdb:

make run

You will be able to log in to localhost:1324 using the username test and password test, and the plugin should be automatically enabled!

If something goes wrong, you can try rebuilding your plugin with make debug, or if all else fails, run make clean, which will clear the testdb folder and the dist folder, and then try building again.

Live Reload

The above commands run a single build. You can also have the plugin auto-build on changes:

make watch

While you will still need to restart heedy with make run each time the backend servers are changed, changing the frontend javascript should just require a browser refresh when watching.

Building a Release

When you're ready to release your plugin, run:

make

The resulting plugin zip file will be in the dist/ folder.