Hello world¶
This tutorial shows you how to create a new plugin that consists of a new page with the text “Hello world” on it.
Before anything else, you need to install Elgg.
In this tutorial we will pretend your site’s URL is https://elgg.example.com
.
First, create a directory that will contain the plugin’s files. It should be located under the mod/
directory which is located in your Elgg installation directory. So in this case, create mod/hello/
.
Composer file¶
Elgg requires that your plugin has a composer file that contains information about the plugin. Therefore, in the directory you just created, create a file called composer.json
and copy this code into it:
{
"name": "elgg/hello",
"type": "elgg-plugin",
"description": "Hello World plugin",
"license": "GPL-2.0-only",
"require": {
"composer/installers": "^1.0.8"
}
}
Registering a route¶
The next step is to register a route which has the purpose of handling
request that users make to the URL https://elgg.example.com/hello
.
Update elgg-plugin.php
to look like this:
<?php
return [
'routes' => [
'default:hello' => [
'path' => '/hello',
'resource' => 'hello',
],
],
];
This registration tells Elgg that it should call the resource view hello
when a user navigates to
https://elgg.example.com/hello
.
View file¶
Create mod/hello/views/default/resources/hello.php
with this content:
<?php
echo elgg_view_page('Hello', [
'title' => 'Hello world!',
'content' => 'My first page!',
]);
The code creates an array of parameters to be given to the elgg_view_layout()
function, including:
- The title of the page
- The contents of the page
- Filter which is left empty because there’s currently nothing to filter
This creates the basic layout for the page. The layout is then run through
elgg_view_page()
which assembles and outputs the full page.
Last step¶
Finally, activate the plugin through your Elgg administrator page: https://elgg.example.com/admin/plugins
(the new plugin appears at the bottom).
You can now go to the address https://elgg.example.com/hello/
and you should see your new page!