Plugin system

[nrobinaubertin]

Zusam should be tiny, stable and extensible. For that to be true, we need a good plugin system. A document should also be written to identify what should be core and what should be a plugin.

[briaeros]

For the document, it could be useful to specify on what functional part of zusam a plugin can be possible. It will also help define what's in the core (and what service it brings).

In addition defining a standard way of storing/getting the data from/for the plugin (I propose a json dictionnary as it's well accepted by javascript, and sqlite even get an JSON extension to help request or insert).

In addition, I think that "plugin accessible data" must be created for at least 3 specifics objects

• the metadata of the "data" (adding/showing tags or other specific data linked to a picture/movie/...)
• the groups ( adding rights/acl to control if a user could invite someone or could upload data )
• the users ( user-wide settings for a plugin)

[nrobinaubertin]

I still want to add plugins to Zusam but the scope will be reduced compared to what I had in mind initially.

Plugins will be a way to upload new types of messages and display them. My current ideas are:

• a markdown plugin (to write markdown messages)
• an html plugin (w/o JS but could be used for some presentation work and would allow more creative power than markdown. Could also be a way to share saved pages)
• A photo album module (more capabilities than just uploading files, for example add descriptions to photos)

The current implementation of a Message is very generic (the data is just some json). That was made to enable those kinds of plugin and this is great. The difficulty will come from loading those plugins as javascript modules.

Tests will be needed