Joomla Dependency Management

[Júlio Pontes]

Hi guys,

I've thinking about a dependency management for joomla extensions manifest.

<dependencies>
      <dependency type="library" element="jplatform" maxversion="11.1" updateserver="http://extensions.joomla.org/updates/libs/platform/extension.xml" method="install" />
      <dependency type="module" element="mod_articles_archive" minversion="2.5.0" updateserver="http://extensions.joomla.org/updates/mods/site/articles_archive/extension.xml" method="install" client="site" />
      <dependency type="plugin" element="oauth" minversion="2.5.7" />
</dependencies>

Dependency Node Attributes

type: This specify type of your exntension. can be a module, component, library, etc.
element: name of your extension
minversion: min version accepted
maxversion: max version accepted
updateserver: url for extension update
method: method for dependency install, update
client: For module, template you need to specific a client

This is my propose for joomla dependency management.
I know that dependency can be much more complex than my example, but we need a start.

Cheers,

Julio Pontes

[Jeremy Wilken]

Julio,

I'm 100% on board with this, and already have begun some work to refactor the exact same concept.

I have been looking at http://getcomposer.org/ for inspiration, and have done a little bit of work to see if that could be pulled into Joomla. Its a full fledged package management system, so it would alter a lot of things. The biggest benefit would be access to the http://packagist.org/ collection, so it would offload a lot of work on the part of devs on running update servers and provide a more centralized system. On the other hand its a different system that people would have to get used to.

I think your concept is the 'joomla' way but sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't do a better job of adopting what others do instead of reinventing the wheel. What do you think?

[Júlio Pontes]

Jeremy,

agreed with you, I want to help/see how works. I'll start to study and try to help better. :)

[Amy Stephen]

Also, check out Louis's packager:

https://github.com/LouisLandry/packager