Zef Hemel
8d8bb46649
Split the Plug Development page into a quick-start with more subtopics: Architecture (loading, sandboxing, execution), Reference (manifests, hooks, syscalls), and Distribution and Testing. Swap the Excalidraw architecture embed for a Mermaid diagram, and update the website Dockerfile to ship the Mermaid plug instead of Excalidraw.
1.9 KiB
Once your plug works locally, you probably want to ship it to other people. This page covers both.
Distribution: ship your plug in a Library
Plugs are distributed as part of a Library — the unit of distribution for all SilverBullet extensions. You don’t publish the .plug.js on its own; you publish a library page that carries it.
The recipe mirrors Library/Development:
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Create a Meta Page under
Library/yourname/Your Thingwith frontmatter that lists the plug file:--- name: Library/yourname/Your Thing tags: meta/library files: - yourthing.plug.js --- This library adds … -
Drop the compiled
yourthing.plug.jsnext to the library page — e.g.Library/yourname/yourthing.plug.js. Thefiles:list tells the library system to ship the plug along with the page when somebody installs it. -
Publish the library page with the ${widgets.commandButton "Share: Page"} command (GitHub file, Gist, etc.), which gives the page a public URI.
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End users install it with ${widgets.commandButton "Library: Install"} using that URI, or discover it through a Repository.
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Updates: push new versions of the library page via
Share: Page; installed users pull via the Library Manager.
See Library, Library/Development, Share, Repository, and Library Manager for the broader library system.
Testing & debugging
Browser console
Plugs run in Web Workers, so console.log from a plug shows up in the browser’s JavaScript console under the worker entry. Syscalls that perform HTTP (e.g. the API/http / fetch syscalls) surface on the main thread — look there in the Network panel, not in the worker context.
Live reload
Copying a .plug.js will be picked up by the sync engine fairly quickly. After this happens, a simple Plugs: Reload will (re)load the plug. No page refresh is required.