joplin/readme/dev/spec/default_plugins.md

How to add a new default plugin

To add a new default plugin for desktop:

• Add the plugin ID and pinned version to defaultPlugins object located in desktopDefaultPluginsInfo.ts

• If necessary, you can also add default settings for the plugins.

• For example, if you wanted to add 2 default settings, settingName1 and settingName2, then you will modify the defaultPlugins object in following way:

const defaultPlugins = {
    'samplePluginId': {
        version: '1.0.0',
        settings: {
            'settingName1': 'setting-value1',
            'settingName2': 'setting-value2',
        },
    },
};

Bundling of default plugins

Script for bundling default plugins is present in bundleDefaultPlugins.ts

Every time a new desktop release is being built, we compare the local default plugins version with pinned plugin version mentioned in desktopDefaultPluginsInfo.ts

If there is a newer version available, we will pull the tgz file of plugin from NPM registry and extract it. We will then move manifest.json and plugin.jpl to the build folder of desktop.

Installing of default plugins

• All the functions related to default plugins are located in defaultPluginsUtils.ts
• On every startup, we check if there are new plugins available in build folder that have not been installed yet. After installing the new plugin, we update the installedDefaultPlugins array in Setting.ts with respective plugin ID for future reference.
• After installing is complete, we apply the default settings for each default plugin. Default settings are located in desktopDefaultPluginsInfo.ts
• If the plugin is already installed by the user, then we don't apply default settings to avoid overriding user's settings.