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Creating plugins

Basics on creating plugins for Xena.

If you don't have registered an app in Xena see Register your app for instructions.

After you have successfully registered your app in Xena go to Apps > Developer find your app and open it. From here you can change the settings around your app. Click on the Plugin tab on the right side of the window. Now you see the list of plugins you have added to your app, from here you can also create new plugins.

What is a plugin?

An app in Xena consists of plugins. A plugin can be a main menu item, main menu group, tab, or widget. We show plugins inside iFrames in Xena. We call these places "plugin placements" which you can select when creating your plugin.

Fields for a plugin

Which fields are required depends on the setting type and context menu in the creation form.

Title

Title for the plugin. This title is used as a title on widgets, tabs, buttons, menus, etc.

Index

Index for the plugin. This field is used to order the menu items or tabs.

Icon CSS class

Used for menu items. Specify a CSS class for a FontAwesome5 icon Specify both the type class and icon class. For the solid wrench icon that would be fas fa-wrench

Type

The type of a plugin describes which type of view the plugin is related to. See it as a form of main placement Main menu item for the plugin in the main menu. Partner overview for a tab or widget inside the Partner overview

Menu Group

Grouping of menu items or placement at the root level. Most often placed at the root level would be available here.

Context menu

Where to place plugin under Type (main placement) For menu items this would be other main menu items that your plugin could be placed under.

External URI

Specify the location of the plugin. HTTPS is required. Placeholders for Xena data is available

Placeholder

Value

{fid}

Current FiscalSetupId

{eid}

Current EntityId

{rid}

Current ResourceId

{uid}

Current UserId

{lcid}

Current culture

A live example of the URI will be shown while typing.

Security (available after May 29th, 2020)

The plugin is visible to the user using an iFrame. As per default, scripts are allowed in our iframes.

Xena Default

Attribute

Description

[x]

allow-same-origin

(Xena default for our own plugins)

[x]

allow-scripts

Allow plugin to run javascript in sandbox. Set by default for our provided plugin.js

[ ]

allow-forms

Allows form submission from plugin

[ ]

allow-popups

Allows popups inside sandbox (ie. new windows)

[ ]

allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox

Allow popups from plugin to escape sandbox

[ ]

allow-modals

Allow to open modal windows from plugin

[ ]

allow-downloads

Allow plugin to initiate downloads

Xena Defaults can't be changed!

If your app initiates downloads from a plugin then go to that specific plugin and check the security setting regarding download. Be aware that by allowing this sandbox attributes your app can become insecure! Add only the attributes that are absolutely needed for your plugin.

Styling the plugins

If you want to reuse Xena’s look’n’feel inside your plugin you can reference a subset of our stylesheet designed for plugins. Please review our design guide to learn more.

<link href="https://my.xena.biz/Content/css/xena-plugin.css" rel="stylesheet" />
Design Guide

Interact with Xena frontend.

Xena provides the possibility to open Xena modules inside Xena from a plugin. To interact the plugin should include this small snippet of JavaScript in <head> tag.

<script src="https://my.xena.biz/scripts/xena.plugin.js"></script>

Alert

openAlert has two optional parameters message and title. When called an alert dialog will be shown in Xena. Syntax: Xena.openAlert(message: string = '', title: string = '')

Example

Xena.openAlert('You have reached todays limit', 'Wooops!');

Confirm

openConfirm has one required and two optional parameters. The first parameter is the callback which you will receive true if the user clicks "OK" and false if the user clicks "Cancel" or closes the confirm box. Syntax: Xena.openConfirm(callback: (result: boolean) => any, message: string = '', title: string = '')

Example

Xena.openConfirm(function(result) {
  console.log('User confirmed', result);
}, 'Can you confirm this? :-)', 'Please confirm');

Popup

openPopup has two required and one optional parameter. The first parameter is the callback when the popup is closed. Either by the user or by your plugin. When the user closes the plugin from within Xena (via ESC-key) the callback with be called with null as the result argument: callback(null). Inside your plugin, you can call closePopupwith an optional parameter. This parameter can be used to send a result from your modal page to your page that initiated the modal.

Syntax: Xena.openPopup(callback: (result: any) => any, url: string, title: string = '')

Syntax: Xena.closePopup(result: any = null)

Example

Plugin page

Xena.openPopup(function(result) {
  console.log('Result:', result);
}, '{link-to-your-iframe}', 'Plugin Iframe in Modal');

Plugin iFrame page

Xena.closePopup({ status:  'Closed from iframe' });

Sizing plugins

The content of any plugin should always be responsive! So make sure that your plugins work with any width. Xena will automatically try to calculate the height of the plugins. But it is possible to overwrite this calculation by overwriting Xena.getHeight.

Syntax: Xena.getHeight: () => number Example

Xena.getHeight = function() {
  return 200;
}
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