Plugin documentation

Plugins allows Bridge to be extended with functionality, both through the backend main process or by creating UI widgets.

Table of contents

• Examples
• Getting started
  • Structure
  • Plugin manifest
    • version
    • name
    • main
    • engines
    • contributes
  • Building plugins
  • Installing plugins
• API reference
• Styling

Examples

Example plugins can be found in the examples directory

Getting started

Plugins are Javascript packages located in Bridge's plugin directory.

Structure

Bridge plugin directory
  |- my-plugin
    |- package.json   # The plugin manifest (required)
    |- index.js       # The main entry file (optional - only required if the plugin has a script to execute)

Plugin manifest

Each plugin MUST contain a plugin manifest in the form of package.json with a few additional properties. This file is responsible for telling Bridge requirements and contributions made by the plugin in order to run it correctly and efficiently.

Contributions can be added either through package.json or using the matching api method, such as bridge.types.registerType(typeObject).

Example manifest

{
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "name": "my-plugin",
  "main": "index.js",
  "engines": {
    "bridge": "^1.0.0"
  },
  "contributes": {
    "shortcuts": [
      {
        "id": "my-plugin.shortcuts.my-shortcut",
        "action": "my-plugin.my-action",
        "description": "Executes my cool action",
        "trigger": ["Shift", "A"]
      }
    ],
    "settings": [
      {
        "title": "My boolean setting",
        "description": "Manage my boolean value",
        "bind": "shared.plugins.my-plugin.settings.boolean-setting",
        "inputs": [
          { "type": "boolean", "bind": "value", "label": "My setting's value" }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "types": [
      {
        "id": "my-plugin.types.my-image-type",
        "inherits": "bridge.types.image",
        "properties": {
          "my-plugin.my-property": {
            "name": "My property",
            "type": "string",
            "group": "Cool settings"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

version

Required
See https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/configuring-npm/package-json#version
The plugin's current version as a semver string.

name

Required
See https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/configuring-npm/package-json#name
The name of the plugin.

main

Optional
See https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/configuring-npm/package-json#main
The package's main file which will be run in the main process. If not specified Bridge won't run any script on plugin initialization.

disabled

Optional
A boolean indicating whether this plugin is disabled or not, this is useful for toggling plugins during development

engines

Required
See https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/configuring-npm/package-json#engines
Declare what version of Bridge is required to run the plugin. This property is required and must contain the bridge key and a valid semver tag.

contributes

Optional
Optionally declare contributions made by this plugin. See the API documentation for specifics.

Building plugins

Plugins are agnostic to the choice of build tool as long as the resulting code is commonJS (for backend/worker code) and fully resolved (for frontend/widget code), and packaged as a directory with a package.json file.

The only call to require that's allowed in frontend code is require('bridge') as that will be resolved during runtime.

Backend code can require external libraries.