GoBlog/docs/plugins.md

GoBlog Plugins

GoBlog has a (still experimental) plugin system, that allows adding new functionality to GoBlog without adding anything to the GoBlog source and recompiling GoBlog. Plugins work using the Yaegi package by Traefik, are written in Go and are interpreted at run time.

Configuration

Plugins can be added to GoBlog by adding a "plugins" section to the configuration.

plugins:
  - path: embedded:syndication # Use a Plugin provided by GoBlog using the "embedded:" prefix
    import: syndication
    config: # Provide configuration for the plugin
      parameter: syndication
  - path: embedded:demo
    import: demo
  - path: ./plugins/mycustomplugin
    import: mycustompluginpackage
    config:
      abc:
        def:
          one: 1
          two: 2

You need to specify the path to the plugin (remember to mount the path to your GoBlog container when using Docker) and the Go packakge and you can additionally provide configuration for the plugin.

Types of plugins

There are different plugin types for different functionalities a plugin wants to support. A plugin can implement multiple plugin types. You can find more information about the plugin types in the Go documentation.

You can take a look at the demo plugin, which implements many of the plugin types.

Plugin implementation

All you need to do is creating a Go-file that has a GetPlugin function that returns the interface implementation of the desired GoBlog plugin types.

So if you want to create a plugin that implements the Exec and UI plugin types, you need this:

package yourpluginpackage

import "go.goblog.app/app/pkgs/plugintypes"

type plugin struct {}

func GetPlugin() (plugintypes.Exec,	plugintypes.UI) {
	p := &plugin{}
	return p, p
}

Of course, the plugin Go type also needs to have the required functions and methods:

// Exec
func (p *plugin) Exec() {
  // Do something
}

// UI
func (p *plugin) Render(rc plugintypes.RenderContext, rendered io.Reader, modified io.Writer) {
  // Do something, but at least write something to modified, otherwise, the page will stay blank
}

If you want to access the configuration that is provided for your plugin, you need to implement the SetConfig plugin type. To access some more functions of GoBlog, implement the SetApp plugin type that allows you, for example, to access the database or get posts and their parameters.

Packages provided

Several go modules are already provided by GoBlog, so you don't have to vendor them.

GoBlog modules:

• go.goblog.app/app/pkgs/plugintypes (Needed for every plugin)
• go.goblog.app/app/pkgs/htmlbuilder (Can be used to generate HTML)
• go.goblog.app/app/pkgs/bufferpool (Can be used to manage bytes.Buffers more efficiently)

Third-party modules

• github.com/PuerkitoBio/goquery (Can be used to manipulate HTML in a jquery-like way)
• github.com/carlmjohnson/requests (Can be used to do HTTP requests more easily)

Plugins

Some simple plugins are included in the main GoBlog repository. Some can be found elsewhere.

Custom CSS (Path embedded:customcss, Import customcss)

A plugin that can add custom CSS to every HTML page. Just specify a CSS file and it will minify the file and append it to the rendered HTML head.

Config

file (string): Path to the custom CSS file.

Demo (Path embedded:demo, Import demo)

A simple demo plugin showcasing some of the features plugins can implement. Take a look at the source code, if you want to implement your own plugin.

Syndication links (Path embedded:syndication, Import syndication)

Adds hidden u-syndication data elements to post page when the configured post parameter (default: "syndication") is available.

Config

parameter (string): Name for the post parameter containing the syndication links.

Webrings (Path embedded:webrings, Import webrings)

Adds webring links to the bottom of the blog footer to easily participate in webrings.

Config

You can add webring links like this:

config:
  default: # Name of the blog
    - title: Webring # Title to show for the webring (required)
      # At least one of link, prev or next is required
      link: https://example.org/ # Link to the webring
      prev: https://example.com/ # Link to previous webring site
      next: https://example.net/ # Link to next webring site

AI generated summary (Path embedded:aitldr, Import aitldr)

A plugin that uses the ChatGPT API to generated a short one-sentence summary for the blog post (after creating or updating it). To prevent it from generating a summary for a post, add the following post parameter:

noaitldr: "true"

Config

config:
  # Required
  apikey: YOUR_OPEN_AI_API_KEY
  # Optional:
  default: # Name of the blog
    title: "Custom title for the summary box:"