Working with Plugin Settings

Plugin might have settings, for example, Ant plugin has a setting defining a path to Ant executable. There are four types of plugin setting:

Global plugin setting

Gobal plugin setting can be specified by overriding method getPluginSettingClass in the plugin class as follows:

public class MyPlugin extends AbstractPlugin {
    ...
    Class<?> getPluginSettingClass() {
        return MyPluginSetting.class;
    }
    ...
}

The class MyPluginSetting should be provided by plugin developer, for example:

public class MyPluginSetting {
    private String property1;
    private String property2;

    @Editable(order=100)
    public String getProperty1 {
        return property1;
    }
    public void setProperty1(String property1) {
        this.property1 = property1;
    }

    @Editable(order=200)
    public String getProperty2 {
        return property2;
    }
    public void setProperty2(String property2) {
        this.property2 = property2;
    }
}

With property annotations, QuickBuild will generate the user interface to edit and save setting for this plugin. Refer to [Generate Plugin UI] for details about how to use annotation to define the setting's user interface.
The defined plugin setting object can be retrieved by using following code:

MyPluginSetting myPluginSetting = (MyPluginSetting)PluginSettingHelper.getPluginSetting(MyPlugin.class);

User level plugin setting

User level plugin setting can be specified by overriding method getPluginUserSettingClass in the plugin class. Let's take the MSN Notifier plugin as example:

public class MsnPlugin extends AbstractPlugin {
    ...
    Class<?> getPluginUserSettingClass() {
        Return MsnUserSetting.class;
    }
    ...
}

And the MsnUserSetting class is defined as follows:

public class MsnUserSetting {
    private String msnAccount;

    @Editable(order=100)
    @Email
    @NotEmpty
    public String getMsnAccount() {
        return msnAccount;
    }

    public void setMsnAccount(String msnAccount) {
        this.msnAccount = msnAccount;
    }
}

This setting adds an attribute "msnAccount" to each user's user interface when a user is edited and displayed:

For a particular user, this attribute can be retrieved as follows:

UserSetting userSetting = (UserSetting)PluginSettingHelper.getPluginSetting(MsnPlugin.class, user);
String msnAccount = userSetting.getMsnAccount();

1. Group level plugin setting
   Group level plugin setting is very similar to user level plugin setting, except that:
   • Group setting is attached to each group and will be displayed and edited if you view or edit particular group.
   • The setting class is specified by overriding method getPluginGroupSettingClass
   • The setting object can be retrieved by calling PluginSettingHelper.getPluginSetting(<Plugin Main Class>, <group instance>)
2. Configuration level plugin setting
   Configuration level plugin setting is very similar to user level plugin setting, except that:
   • Configuration setting is attached to each configuration and will be displayed and edited if you view or edit particular configuration
   • The setting class is specified by overriding method getPluginConfigurationSettingClass
   • The setting object can be retrieved by calling PluginSettingHelper.getPluginSetting(<Plugin Main Class>, <configuration instance>)
3. Plugin setting migration
   Refer to [QBTEAM:Bean Migrator] for how to migrate plugin settings between different plugin versions.