The ClioPatria plugin architecture

ClioPatria plugins are Prolog source-files that can do two things:

• Define hooks to alter the behavior of the existing application. Supported hooks are documented in hooks.pl.
• Create an HTTP service. Such services come in two types:
  • Services that produce HTML for human consumption
  • Services that produce XML or JSON for machines.

Plugins can be added to ClioPatria in many different ways. To preserve best modularity, we suggest to add plugins to the configuration directory config-enabled. Standard plugins are provided in the directory config-available. In addition, most packages come with a config-available directory.

If ClioPatria is configures (using configure (Unix) or setup.pl (Windows), it installs a default configuration of plugins in config-enabled. This default is determined by the file DEFAULTS, in the directory config-available. This file contains Prolog terms of the format:

config(File, Action).

Here, File is a reference to a file in the config directory and Action is one of

link

Try to install the file using a link. This is used for plugin files that are typically need no further editing. If linking is not provided by the platform, the file is copied.

copy

Install the file by copying. This is typically used for files that need further configuration.