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': {
        settings: {
            'settingName1': 'setting-value1',
            'settingName2': 'setting-value2',
        },
    },
};

After this, add the commit, branch, and clone URL to be build from to pluginRepositories.json.

For example,

{
	"plugin.id.here": {
		"cloneUrl": "https://example.com/plugin-repo/plugin-repo-here.git",
		"branch": "main",
		"commit": "840d2e84b70adf6de961e167dcd27ddad088b286"
	}
}

Patching the plugin

Some plugins need patching. To create or update a plugin's patch, run the patch-plugin command in the packages/default-plugins/ directory.

For example,

$ cd packages/default-plugins
$ yarn patch-plugin plugin.id.here

The script will create a temporary directory in which changes can be made. Do not stage the changes that should appear in the patch.

Bundling of default plugins

Scripts for bundling default plugins are present in packages/default-plugins/.

These are run by the app-desktop package on a full build (e.g. on postinstall).

Installing of default plugins

• All the functions related to default plugins are located in defaultPluginsUtils.ts
• Default plugins are bundled with the app (included in the build/ directory) and loaded from this directory.
• To allow loading dev and NPM versions of the plugin, default plugins are loaded after non-default plugins. The plugin service refuses to load additional copies of already-loaded plugins. As such, non-default plugins take precedence over default plugins.
• After loading is complete, we apply the default settings for each default plugin. Default settings are located in desktopDefaultPluginsInfo.ts. The installedDefaultPlugins setting is used to ensure that settings are only overridden once.
• If the plugin is already installed by the user, then we don't apply default settings to avoid overriding user's settings.