Plugin Best Practices

Installation
Use your own design
Extend Mango
Plugins
FAQs

Extending BasePlugin

All plugins should extend org.mangoblog.plugins.BasePlugin. This gives your plugin all the required functions and a set of utilities for managing preferences efficiently.

1. Avoid Hardcoded Paths

Plugins should never assume a fixed location. Both plugins and components can be moved outside the webroot; their paths are defined in the configuration file.

2. Don’t Use Tags for Output

Tags should only be used for layout.
Plugins relying on tags may break if the plugin’s folder structure changes.

3. Minimize Access to Global Scopes

Avoid direct use of server, application, request, or session variables.
Fetch necessary data from the current event.
Store variables within the plugin’s own scope.
The application scope is unnecessary because plugins persist for the lifetime of the application.