wiki:PLUGIN_MODULE_STRUCTURE
Last modified 16 years ago Last modified on 04/08/09 15:25:31

  1. PLUGIN MODULE STRUCTURE
    1. Module Structure
      1. Proto Project
      2. How to make a new module
    2. Sophie Modules
      1. Diagram
      2. Functionality
      3. Extension/Extension Points
        1. Description
        2. Examples
        3. Diagram
      4. Shared Resources

PLUGIN MODULE STRUCTURE

Module Structure

The structure of Sophie 2 module can be seen on PLATFORM_STRUCTURE page, second table.

Proto Project

We created a proto project module so we can easily create new modules with the correct structure. It is stored in the trunk/sophie2-platform/dev-tools in zip format. Its structure is just like the module structure described in PLATFORM_STRUCTURE except the target folder, which is created after the build process.
` It contains the needed folders created and:

  • Hello.java simple class to prevent failing the build if the module creator forgets to put classes in his/her new module.
  • pom.xml sample file which must be edited with the new module information.

How to make a new module

This is important so be careful reading and doing the steps:

  • Extract the archive org.sophie2.proto.project(the .zip file doesn't contain .svn files for its subfolders so you don't have to deal with nasty svn issues later), located in trunk/sophie2-platform/dev-tools. in the modules folder.
  • Edit its pom.xml file, changing the 'artifactId'. All other occurencies of org.sophie2.proto.project (for example in the <Export-Package> should be replaced with the new module name. You should also edit the <name> and <description> tags. You can look at the <instructions> tag if your module requires a main class or a class, extending SophieModule.
  • Rename the org.sophie2.proto.project folder to the name of the new module(using the file system or Refactor->Rename in Eclipse).
  • Add the name of the new module to the trunk/sophie2-platform/pom.xml - modules section.
  • In Eclipse - Select 'Import'->'Maven Projects'->Choose the 'Root Directory' to be sophie2-platform folder in the repo and select the new module shown in the 'Projects' box-> Click Finish.
  • The project is shown and it has errors because the package is not correct - rename the package to be your new module name and you are ready to go.

Sophie Modules

The current sophie2-platform modules are listed in trunk/sophie2-platform/modules folder.

Diagram

Here is a diagram with all the current modules and the dependencies between them:
trunk/sophie2-platform/doc/uml-design-diagrams/Plugin_Dependency_Diagram.png

Functionality

The list of modules and their functionality in few words:

  • org.sophie2.author - It is one of the main sophie2 parts and represents the Author Sophie2 edition. For now provides main method for running the application under Eclipse. It has varous configuration files in resources folder - for log4j, runtime properties and file with modules to be loaded for the author edition.
  • org.sophie2.base.* - Contains classes which provides base functionally for persistence, scenes, model book and resource models, layouts, halos and dialogs. org.sophie2.base module will be decomposed more in the future.
  • org.sophie2.core - Provides the core functionality. Contains 'properties' implementation(See PRO_LIB_CORE_TUTORIAL, mvc logic implementation and testing package with the testing help classes. It will be decomposed more.
  • org.sophie2.core.modularity - Provides classes for dealing with common modularity issues and has very good demonstration(in the test folder) using them.
  • org.sophie2.launcher - Module for launching the editions and loading the modules needed. Contains Main which runs the application under JavaWebStart.
  • org.sophie2.main.* - Contains the main implementation for sophie2 components. Provides the viewed part of the project.
  • org.sophie2.messy - For 'messy' things. Contain everything that isn't already decomposed.
  • org.sophie2.server.* - Contains the sophie2 server libraries and starting server configurations.

Extension/Extension Points

Description

Extension points / extensions are what makes application extensible. Simply speaking, application extensibility is adding on to already existing functionality.

An extension point is an opening that may be added to by later code.
An extension is code that adds onto an existing extension point.

Examples

These are the JPF classes and concepts which are similar to the Sophie implementation of extensions and extension points:

Concrete implementations and tests for the Sophie implementations are located in the trunk/sophie2-platform/modules/org.sophie2.core.modularity module. in the test folder there is very useful example how to use the core.modularity library.

Good example in our project is also the module trunk/sophie2-platform/modules/org.sophie2.base.dialogs. There is BaseDialogsModule which is module class for the base dialogs and represents the extension point(static inner class) for the dialogs, called DialogExtensionPoint. The Dialog represents the abstract class to be extended by the dialog extensions.

Diagram

  • The extensions and extension points defined in the project now are:

source:/trunk/sophie2-platform/doc/uml-design-diagrams/Extensions_And_Extension_Points.png

  • Something like a legend for the upper diagram for clear understanding about the arrows and components:

source:/trunk/sophie2-platform/doc/uml-design-diagrams/ex_ep_relation.png

Shared Resources

Because of the need of external resources for our jars, we decided to make an API for resource managing. It will be implemented soon.
The resources, which need to be shared with other modules, are located in src/main/resources/distrib folder in the module which provides them.