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diff --git a/docs/creating-plugins.md b/docs/creating-plugins.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..531ece163 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/creating-plugins.md @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ +### Creating a Plugin + +A plugin is just a set of overrides for the loader hooks of the ES6 module specification. + +The hooks plugins can override are `locate`, `fetch`, `translate` and `instantiate`. + +Read more about loader extensions and hooks at the [ES6 Module Loader polyfill wiki](https://github.com/ModuleLoader/es6-module-loader/blob/v0.17.0/docs/loader-extensions.md). + +The behaviors of the hooks are: + +* Locate: Overrides the location of the plugin resource +* Fetch: Called with third argument representing default fetch function, has full control of fetch output. +* Translate: Returns the translated source from `load.source`, can also set `load.metadata.sourceMap` for full source maps support. +* Instantiate: Providing this hook as a promise or function allows the plugin to hook instantiate. Any return value becomes the defined custom module object for the plugin call. + +### Building Plugins + +When building via [SystemJS Builder](https://github.com/systemjs/builder), plugins that use the translate hook will be inlined into the bundle automatically. + +In this way, the bundle file becomes independent of the plugin loader and resource. + +If it is desired for the plugin itself not to be inlined into the bundle in this way, setting `exports.build = false` on the plugin will disable this, +causing the plugin loader itself to be bundled in production instead to continue to dynamically load the resource. + +#### Sample CoffeeScript Plugin + +For example, we can write a CoffeeScript plugin with the following (CommonJS as an example, any module format works fine): + +js/coffee.js: +```javascript + var CoffeeScript = require('coffeescript'); + + exports.translate = function(load) { + // optionally also set the sourceMap to support both builds and in-browser transpilation + // load.metadata.sourceMap = generatedSourceMap; + return CoffeeScript.compile(load.source); + } +``` + +By overriding the `translate` hook, we now support CoffeeScript loading with: + +``` + - js/ + - coffee.js our plugin above + - coffeescript.js the CoffeeScript compiler + - app/ + - main.coffee +``` + +```javascript + System.import('app/main.coffee!').then(function(main) { + // main is now loaded from CoffeeScript + }); +``` + +Source maps can also be passed by setting `load.metadata.sourceMap`. + +#### Sample CSS Plugin + +A CSS plugin, on the other hand, could override the fetch hook: + +js/css.js: +```javascript + exports.fetch = function(load, fetch) { + return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) { + var cssFile = load.address; + + var link = document.createElement('link'); + link.rel = 'stylesheet'; + link.href = cssFile; + link.onload = resolve; + + document.head.appendChild(link); + }) + .then(function() { + // return an empty module in the module pipeline itself + return ''; + }); + } +``` + +Each loader hook can either return directly or return a promise for the value. + +The other loader hooks are also treated otherwise identically to the specification. |