Joomla 4 instant extension scaffolding
- Node/npm
- PHP server: anything from XAMP, MAMP, or a Docker solution will do as long as it got the latest PHP/Mysql and either Apache/Nginx (Always prefer Nginx)
- navigate to the folder that will be the base for your extension(s) through CLI
- run
npx @dgrammatiko/create-joomla-extension
- Answer the basic questions for the repeated replacable string (alternative a file named
user-info.json
could be copy/pasted in the same path) - The
user-info.json
has the following content (if accepting the defaults):
{
"namespace": "Dgrammatiko",
"userName": "Dimitrios Grammatikogiannis",
"userEmail": "[email protected]",
"userURL": "https://dgrammatiko.dev",
"userLicense": "GNU General Public License version 3 or later",
"userCopyright": "(C) {{currentYear}} Dimitrios Grammatikogiannis"
}
- Following steps are:
-
- Choose the extension type: Component, Module, Library, Plugin or Template
-
- Modules and Templates need to be defined as Site or Administrator
-
- Plugins need to be defined as their type, ie System, Content, etc
That's that. The extension basic files will be automatically created.
You can repeat the process to get more extensions...
Once you're ready you need to run npm install
to get the needed tools.
Then npm run init
For the assets compilation/transpiling you could run npm run build && npm run link
(npm run link
is needed whenever more folders are introduced)
Finally run npm run release
to get a distributable zip file.
This is CLI tool that will generate a basic boilerplate of a component, module, plugin, library, template. The command is expected to be run inside a directory that will become the source of your code. It will generate a folder structure like:
--src (directory for the PHP files)
|
|-- components
| |
| |-- component xxx (com_xxx)
|
|-- libraries
| |
| |-- library yyy
|
|-- modules
| |
| |-- admin
| | |
| | |-- module zzz (mod_zzz)
| |
| |-- site
| |
| |-- module www (mod_www)
|
|-- plugins
| |
| |-- Type
| |
| |-- plugin uuu (plg_type_uuu)
|
|-- templates
| |
| |-- admin
| | |
| | |-- template aaa (tpl_aaa)
| |
| |-- site
| |
| |-- template bbb (tpl_bbb)
-- www
|
|-- Joomla instance (needs to be linked to the directory of your local web server (NGINX, etc)
The user journey:
graph TD;
existing-JSON-file-->extension-type;
first-questions-->generate-JSON-file;
first-questions-->extension-type;
generate-JSON-file-->extension-type;
extension-type-->admin-site;
extension-type-->plugin-type;
admin-site-->create-scaffold;
plugin-type-->create-scaffold;
create-scaffold-->npm-install;
npm-install-->npm-run-init;
npm-run-init-->npm-run-build;
npm-run-build-->npm-run-link;