pluginmanager 0.1.1

Python Plugin Management, simplified

python plugin management, simplified.

Library under development and contains rough edges/unfinished functionality. While not anticipated, API may be subject to changes.

Quickstart

from pluginmanager import PluginInterface

plugin_interface = PluginInterface()
plugin_interface.set_plugin_directories('my/fancy/plugin/path')
plugin_interface.collect_plugins()

plugins = plugin_interface.get_instances()

Installation

pip install pluginmanager

-or-

pip install git+https://github.com/benhoff/pluginmanager.git

Custom Plugins

The quickstart will only work if you subclass IPlugin for your custom plugins (or register your custom class with IPlugin, or use the ‘get_plugins’ method on PluginInterface.)

import pluginmanager
class MyCustomPlugin(pluginmanager.IPlugin):
    pass

IPlugin comes with three instance variables: active: bool, configuration: dict, name: str

and one class variable: CONFIGURATION_TEMPLATE: dict

At the very least, you should give your custom implementations a ‘name’. If a name is not given and the parent class initializer is called, a name will be written to the instance if the attribute doesn’t exist. FYI.

IPlugin has 5 methods: activate, deactivate, get_configuration_template, check_configuration, and configure

Reimplement (or not) as needed.

If the default implementation of IPlugin doesn’t fit your needs, register your class as subclass of IPlugin.

IPlugin.register(YourClassHere)

Architecture

pluginmanager was designed to be as extensible as possible while also being easy to use. There are three layers of access.

Interfaces:

public facing

Managers:

extended or replaced

Filters:

implementation specific

Interfaces

Interfaces were used to provide a simple programmer interface while maintaining the ability to separate out the concerns of the implementation. The main interface is the PluginInterface, which is designed to be as stateless as possible, and have interjectable options, where applicable.

PluginInterface provides the cability to instantiate two other interfaces, the BlacklistInterface and FilterInterface. These interfaces provide universal access to the blacklisting (selectively implemented) and filtering APIs respectively.

Managers

There are four managers which make up the core of the library.

DirectoryManager:

Maintains directory state. Responsbile for recursively searching through directories

FileManager:

Can maintain filepath state. Does maintain file filter state. Responsible for applying file filters to filepaths passed gotten from directories

ModuleManager:

Loads modules from source code. Keeps track of loaded modules. Maintains module filter state. Responsible for applying module filters to modules to get out plugins.

PluginManager:

Instantiates plugins. Maintains plugin state.

Filters

Filters are designed to offer implementation-level extensiblity. Want to only return only files start with “plugin”? Create a filter for it. Or use some of the provided filters to provide the desired implementation.

NOTE: Final implementation of filters and how they interact with the library is currently a WIP and should be considered unstable.