The following section will explain the structure of a plugin description file.
To define a plugin you need to specify it in JSON format. The following block of code show you the basic setup of a plugin.
This is the base of the JSON to describe a plugin. With this you give Touch Portal the information it requires to use it within the Touch Portal environment. The data is as follows:
| Attribute | Type | Mandatory | From version | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sdk | Number | yes | 1.0 | This should represent the SDK version of Touch Portal this plugin is
build for. Versioning data: Touch Portal v2.1 introduced Api 1 Touch Portal v2.2 introduced Api 2 Touch Portal v2.3 introduced Api 3 Touch Portal v3.0 introduced Api 4 Touch Portal v3.0.6 introduced Api 5 Touch Portal v3.0.11 introduced Api 6 |
| version | Number | yes | 1.0 | A number representing your own versioning. Currently this variable is not used by Touch Portal but may be used in the future. This should be an integer value. So only whole numbers, no decimals. This version value will be send back after the pairing has been done. |
| name | Text | yes | 1.0 | This is the name of the Plugin. This will show in Touch Portal in the settings section "Plug-ins". (From Touch Portal version 2.2) |
| id | Text | yes | 1.0 | This is the unique ID of the Plugin. Use an id that will only be used by you. So use a prefix for example. |
| configuration | Object | Optional | 1.0 | This object can be used for coloring the actions and events for the plugin. These colors will be used in the colored theme. In the blue and grey theme this will be ignored. The attributes colorDark and colorLight should be there when you want to specify the colors. The color value is a string hex value, like #FF0000 for red or #00FF00 for green. |
| plugin_start_cmd | Text | Optional | 1.0 | Specify the path of execution here. You should be aware that it will
be passed to the OS process exection service. This means you need to be
aware of spaces and use absolute paths to your executable. If you use %TP_PLUGIN_FOLDER% in the text here, it will be replaced with the path to the base plugins folder. So append your plugins folder name to it as well to access your plugin base folder. This execution will be done when the plugin is loaded in the system and only if it is a valid plugin. Use this to start your own service that communicates with the Touch Portal plugin system. |
| plugin_start_cmd_windows | Text | Optional | 4.0 (TP v3.0.5+) | This is the same plugin_start_cmd but will only run on a Windows desktop. If this is specified Touch Portal will not run the default plugin_start_cmd when this plug-in is used on Windows but only this entry. |
| plugin_start_cmd_mac | Text | Optional | 4.0 (TP v3.0.5+) | This is the same plugin_start_cmd but will only run on a MacOS desktop. If this is specified Touch Portal will not run the default plugin_start_cmd when this plug-in is used on MacOS but only this entry. |
| plugin_start_cmd_linux | Text | Optional | 4.0 (TP v3.0.5+) | This is the same plugin_start_cmd but will only run on a Linux desktop. If this is specified Touch Portal will not run the default plugin_start_cmd when this plug-in is used on Linux but only this entry. |
| categories | Collection | Yes | 1.0 | This is the collection that holds all the action categories. Categories are used in the action list in Touch Portal. Each Category must contain at least an item such as an action, an event or an connector. More on this in the category section. |
| settings | Collection | Optional | 3.0 | This is the collection that holds all the settings for this plug-in |
This is the base part of the JSON object defining the plugin. In the next section we will explain the structure of the categories.