112 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
112 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: post
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title: Leaflet Plugin Authoring Guide
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description: A number of best practices and tips for publishing your own perfect Leaflet plugin
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author: Vladimir Agafonkin
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authorsite: http://agafonkin.com/en
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---
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One of the greatest things about Leaflet is its powerful plugin ecosystem.
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The [Leaflet plugins page](https://leafletjs.com/plugins.html) lists dozens of awesome plugins, and more are being added every week.
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This guide lists a number of best practices for publishing a Leaflet plugin that meets the quality standards of Leaflet itself. Also available [in the repo](https://github.com/Leaflet/Leaflet/blob/master/PLUGIN-GUIDE.md).
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### Presentation
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#### Repository
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The best place to put your Leaflet plugin to is a separate [GitHub](http://github.com) repository.
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If you create a collection of plugins for different uses,
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don't put them in one repo —
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it's usually easier to work with small, self-contained plugins in individual repositories.
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#### Demo
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The most essential thing to do when publishing a plugin is to include a demo that showcases what the plugin does —
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it's usually the first thing people will look for.
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The easiest way to put up a demo is using [GitHub Pages](http://pages.github.com/).
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A good [starting point](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-project-pages-manually) is creating a `gh-pages` branch in your repo and adding an `index.html` page to it —
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after pushing, it'll be published as `http://<user>.github.io/<repo>`.
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#### Readme
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The next thing you need to have is a descriptive `README.md` in the root of the repo (or a link to a website with a similar content).
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At a minimum it should contain the following items:
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- name of the plugin
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- a simple, concise description of what it does
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- requirements
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- Leaflet version
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- other external dependencies (if any)
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- browser / device compatibility
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- links to demos
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- instructions for including the plugin
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- simple usage code example
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- API reference (methods, options, events)
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#### License
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Every open source repository should include a license.
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If you don't know what open source license to choose for your code,
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[MIT License](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) and [BSD 2-Clause License](http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause) are both good choices.
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You can either put it in the repo as a `LICENSE` file or just link to the license from the Readme.
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### Code
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#### File Structure
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Keep the file structure clean and simple,
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don't pile up lots of files in one place —
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make it easy for a new person to find their way in your repo.
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A barebones repo for a simple plugin would look like this:
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my-plugin.js
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README.md
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An example of a file structure for a more sophisticated plugin:
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/src JS source files
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/dist minified plugin JS, CSS, images
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/spec test files
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/examples HTML examples of plugin usage
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README.md
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LICENSE
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package.json
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#### Code Conventions
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Everyone's tastes are different, but it's important to be consistent with whatever conventions you choose for your plugin.
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For a good starting point, check out [Airbnb JavaScript Guide](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript).
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Leaflet follows pretty much the same conventions
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except for using smart tabs (hard tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment)
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and putting a space after the `function` keyword.
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#### Plugin API
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Never expose global variables in your plugin.<br>
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If you have a new class, put it directly in the `L` namespace (`L.MyPlugin`).<br>
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If you inherit one of the existing classes, make it a sub-property (`L.TileLayer.Banana`).<br>
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If you want to add new methods to existing Leaflet classes, you can do it like this: `L.Marker.include({myPlugin: …})`.
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Function, method and property names should be in `camelCase`.<br>
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Class names should be in `CapitalizedCamelCase`.
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If you have a lot of arguments in your function, consider accepting an options object instead (putting default values where possible so that users don't need specify all of them):
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// bad
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marker.myPlugin('bla', 'foo', null, {}, 5, 0);
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// good
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marker.myPlugin('bla', {
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optionOne: 'foo',
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optionThree: 5
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});
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And most importantly, keep it simple. Leaflet is all about *simplicity*.
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Cheers,<br>
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Vladimir.
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