Revision as of 02:56, 13 March 2010

If you want to change existing functionality in ADempiere, write a plugin. It is simple!

Create Plugin Project

• In Eclipse, chose New/Plugin Development/Plugin Project
• as a convention, choose a folder under adempiereTrunk/plugins
• The manifest editor opens, fill in appropriate attributes
  • regarding versioning: I found the default versioning scheme using a qualifier (which is replaced by a timestamp at deployment time) quite annoying, because bundles are never overridden - but maybe I missed something here

Activation

• If you need action to be done, specify an activator in the manifest.
• Certainly you may implement the plain BundleActivator, but preferrably use org.adempiere.plugin.utils.AdempiereActivator
  • You have to import this package in the bundle manifest - it is provided by pluginUtils
• The AdempiereActivator:
  • registeres your plugin as an ADempiere package
  • If you provide /META-INF/PackOut.xml in your plugin, it automagically does a 2Pack Packin with in.
• If nothing is to do on yours plugin start or stop, you may use AdempiereActivator itself as the activator of your plugin
• If you want to do something, subclass and override one of these methods:
  • install() - called after the packIn when your plugin is started in this version for the first time
  • start() - called - optionally after install() - when your plugin is started
  • stop() - called when your plugin is stopped
• You may use each of these utility methods:
  • getName() - name of the plugin
  • getVersion() - version of the plugin

Extension Points

Return to ADempiere/Equinox Integration 2