Plugins Management Console
- Matthew Wagner
You can manage your XperienCentral plugins through the Plugins console. XperienCentral operates on a modular architecture that runs plugins, which are OSGi bundles with a Java API. See https://docs.osgi.org/specification/ for more information. For information on the plugins that are present by default in an XperienCentral version, see Plugins, Add-ons and Core Components Overview. For complete information on developing plugins for XperienCentral see Plugins.
Using the console, you can install, uninstall, update, and start and stop plugins.
In This Topic
Plugin Overview Tab
After opening the Plugin Management Console, the Plugins Overview tab shows a list of installed plugins. These plugins are either part of the XperienCentral platform or are extensions to it. For each plugin the following properties are listed:
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
ID | The ID is determined by the XperienCentral platform when a plugin is started. The ID is not defined by the plugin itself and may differ each time the server has been restarted. |
Name | The name of the plugin as defined in the pom.xml of the plugin. |
Version | The version of the plugin as defined in the pom.xml of the plugin. |
State | The state in which the plugin is running at this moment. The possible states are:
|
Level | The level determines the order in which the bundles start. The level of plugins that are part of the XperienCentral core platform all have a level of 25 and lower. |
Managing a Plugin
When you click a plugin to select it, the title and description for it appear. The values for these two properties are defined in the pom.xml of the plugin:
For plugins with level 25 and higher, the buttons [Start], [Stop], and [Uninstall] appear (see the figure above).
Starting a Plugin
To start a plugin that is not running, click [Start]. The [Start] button is disabled when the bundle is running.
Stopping a Plugin
To stop a plugin, click [Stop]. When a plugin is stopped, it goes into the Resolved state. This button is only enabled when the state of the bundle is Active.
Uninstalling a Plugin
To uninstall a plugin, click [Uninstall]. You have the option of preserving or purging the content related to the plugin. If other plugins are dependent on the one you are uninstalling, you must first uninstall those plugins before you can uninstall the plugin on which other plugins depend.
Plugin Details
By clicking the [More...] button, fully detailed information about the plugin appears:
Headers Tab
This tab shows all the headers of the plugin. Most of them are derived from the pom.xml of the plugin. For example:
Services Tab
A plugin is installed within an OSGi services framework. This tab shows the details on each service that is present in this plugin. After installing a plugin with an element and panel component, there will be three services: one for the element, one for the panel and one for the plugin itself. For example:
Packages Tab
This tab shows the Java packages that the plugin uses from the framework. For example:
Extensions Tab
For plugins that expose extendable components, this tab shows the Java packages that make use of the extensions. For example:
Extension Points Tab
For plugins that make use of the extension(s) of another plugin, this tab shows the Java packages that make use of the extensions. Components that appear in bold are used by one or more consumers and those appearing in italics are exposed but not used by any consumers:
Resolve Button
The [Resolve] button is only useful when the Plugin is in the Installed state. After clicking this button, the framework checks whether the Java packages on the Package tab are present in the framework. This action is also performed when the plugin tries to go from Installed state to Resolved state.
Refresh Button
Plugins may have dependencies on classes from other plugins. After a successful installation, all external dependencies are cached locally. This ensures that a plugin can run properly when another plugin that delivered a class is temporarily unavailable. After clicking the Refresh button all dependencies are checked and updated.
Error Log Tab
The Error log tab helps you debug a plugin that you installed which does not start up properly. The tab shows the messages from the log file that have been triggered by actions from this plugin. For example:
