To create our own page type plugin we will need to know some basic Laravel skills. This simplest plugin only contains a blade template.

For example, the Preview plugin:

When editing a page, it will show a Preview tab and display some useful links. The plugin setting plugin.page-tab-preview value of this Preview plugin is below:

{
    "blade_file": "preview",
    "tab_name": "__(preview)",
    "php_class": ""
}

Code explain:

  1. How the CMS know it's a plugin? There is a record in CMS setting page, it's plugin.page-tab-preview. It's also the plugin view folder name.  It must start with page-tab- as it will attach to the page create/edit form.
  2. "blade_file": It's the blade template file in the  resource/views/vendor/laravel-cms/plugins/page-tab-preview/preview.blade.php
  3. "tab_name":  The tab name display on the page create/edit form. We can leave it empty if we want to hide it.
  4. "php_class":  We don't need any PHP class for this plugin, so leave it empty.

Example of Sub Page plugin:

{
    "plugin_name": "Sub Page",
    "blade_file": "sub-page",
    "tab_name": "__(sub,page)",
    "php_class": "App\\LaravelCms\\Plugins\\SubPage\\Controllers\\SubPageController",
    "number_per_page": 40,
    "display_main_image": false
}

Code explain:

  1. "php_class": The main controller PHP full classpath of this plugin. Every action of create/edit/store/update/destory will trigger the same method in this class. We can put the class in any location, in our app controller folder or even in the vendor. eg.  App\\Http\\Controllers\\MyCmsPlugin
  2. "number_per_page": this is a variable our plugin to use in the PHP class or template. We can set up as many variables as we want.

When the methods of the php_class will be triggered?

  1. The php_class can has create/edit/store/update/destory/show methods. This same method will trigger when the same action happens.
  2. eg. When we click a link to edit a page, The edit() method of our php_class will be invoked, we can pass some extra variables to our plugin blade template.
  3. When click the save button to update the page, the update() method of the php_class will be invoked. We can do some extra update logic here.
  4. When create a new page, the create() method of our php_class will be invoked & store() method invoked after click the save button.
  5. Same as the show() & destory() methods.  It's use the same stand method name of the Laravel controller.
  6. We can only keep the methods we need. eg. the Sub Page plugin only has edit() & update() methods.
  7. The page type plugin does need the show() & index() methods.

What parameters I can use for the methods?

  1. store($form_data, $page, $plugin_settings)  & update($form_data, $page, $plugin_settings):
    $form_data includes all the data submitted from the page form, include the data from ALL plugin blade templates.
    $page is the instance of the saved page, it will NOT include the data of the plugins. 
    $plugin_settings are the settings of our plugin from the JSON data. it's an array.

  2. edit($id, $page, $plugin_settings)  & detory($id, $page, $plugin_settings) 
    $id is the page id,  $page & $plugin_settings are the same as above

  3. create($form_data, $page, $plugin_settings) 
    $form_data is NULL for create() method 
    $page  is NULL for create() method 
    $plugin_settings are the settings of our plugin from the JSON data. it's an array.

  4. Click here to see the source code of the Sub Page controller for better understand.


Step by step myplugin001 example:

  1. Go to the folder your-laravel-project\vendor\alexstack and copy  laravel-cms-plugin-sub-page to laravel-cms-plugin-myplugin001
  2. Go to the folder laravel-cms-plugin-myplugin001 replace code or rename folder/filename from sub-page to myplugin001
  3. Go to the cms setting page, add a plugin,   name: page-tab-myplugin001    value: 
    {
    "blade_file": "myplugin001",
    "tab_name": "__(myplugin001)",
    "php_class": ""
}
  4. Copy the view folder from your-laravel-project\vendor\alexstack\laravel-cms-plugin-myplugin001\src\resources\views\plugins\page-tab-myplugin001 to your-laravel-project\resources\views\vendor\laravel-cms\plugins\page-tab-myplugin001
  5. Now you can find the myplugin001 page tab when you add or edit a page. It will display the blade template content.