Plugin Import Proposal

[imhoffd]

Please feel free to comment on this proposal. Thanks!

---

@capacitor/core should provide a registerPlugin function that takes an object of implementations for each platform. For Android and iOS, the plugins proxy can be used. For web, the web implementation will need to be provided.

registerPlugin will return a RegisteredPlugin object with a getImplementation method that returns the instance of the plugin for the current platform.

The "echo" example will be used for this proposal.

echo-plugin/index.ts

import { Plugins, registerPlugin } from '@capacitor/core';
import { EchoPluginWeb } from './web';

export interface EchoPlugin {
  echo: (something: string) => string;
}

const Plugin = registerPlugin<EchoPlugin>('Echo', {
  android: Plugins.EchoPlugin,
  ios: Plugins.EchoPlugin,
  web: new EchoPluginWeb(),
}).getImplementation();

export { Plugin };

echo-plugin/web.ts

import { WebPlugin } from '@capacitor/core';
import type { EchoPlugin } from '.';

export class EchoPluginWeb extends WebPlugin implements EchoPlugin {
  constructor() {
    super({ name: 'Echo' });
  }

  ...
}

my-app/some-page.tsx

import { Echo } from 'echo-plugin';

await Echo.echo('hello world');

// TODO: Figure out testing.
export class Foo {
  constructor() {
    Echo.echo();
  }
}

This shouldn't be a breaking change because plugins will need to opt-in to using registerPlugin in order for the new plugin import to work. (Previously, users of the plugin would have to import { Plugins } from '@capacitor/core';).

[IT-MikeS]

Shouldn't

export class EchoPluginWeb extends WebPlugin implements EchoPlugin {
  constructor() {
    super({ name: 'Echo' });
  }
}

have an echo method? 🤔

[imhoffd]

Yeah, but not super important to the proposal, I'll add ... to make it clear there's more implementation details.

[IT-MikeS]

Just didn't want people trying it with your code and going "why isn't this working?!?!" I know most people will see the issue but I've been there before where its a small little thing I screw up that takes me far too long to figure out... 😅

[imhoffd]

If you want, you can try the PR: #3305

It's meant to be a working example. 😄

[ionitron-bot]

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