1.2 Flow of plugin development

The following figure shows an overview and flow of plugin development.

Figure 1‒2: Overview of plugin development

The numbers in the figure correspond to the following numbers:

1. A developer develops a plugin in a development environment.

   Eclipse, which is provided by Navigation Platform, is used for plugin development.

   To use Eclipse, setup is required in advance.

2. The developer sends the developed plugin to the editing environment and execution environment.

   The system administrator applies the plugin to the editing environment and execution environment.

3. After plugins are applied, the Content Manager, Content Creator (when JP1/Base is used for user authentication), or Content Editor creates Operational Content in the editing environment.

4. For I/O Plugins, the Content Manager, Content Creator, or Content Editor associates the plugins with Operational Content by drawing mapping lines between Plugin Parts and Guide Parts.

   For Suspend/Resume Plugins and Custom Window Plugins, association is not necessary.

Note

If the system configuration does not use an editing environment, a developer might also perform the tasks in 3 and 4 in a development environment. For details about system configurations, see the manual JP1/Navigation Platform Setup and Operations Guide. For details about how to create Operational Content, see the manual JP1/Navigation Platform Content Editing Guide.

The following provides details about plugin development tasks and includes references.

Before starting development

You must construct a development environment before starting the tasks described here. Note that you must have Windows administrator roles to perform any task described here.

Upon completion of the development

After you have completed development of plugins, send J2EE applications (plugin-name.ear) to an editing environment and execution environment. In the case of developed I/O Plugins, export Operational Content associated with the plugins, and then import them to the editing environment and execution environment.

For details about each task, see the manual JP1/Navigation Platform Setup and Operations Guide.

Table 1‒1: Plugin development tasks

Order	Task	I/O Plugin	Suspend/Resume Plugin	Custom Window Plugin	See:
1	Preparing a development environment (by setting up Eclipse and adding libraries)	R	R	R	Chapter 3
2	Creating template plugins	R	R	R	4.1
3	Importing a template plugin project to Eclipse	R	R	R	4.2
4	Customizing (editing) the template plugin by using Eclipse	R	R	R	4.3.1, 4.4
5	Adding (and implementing) necessary processing to the plugin	S	S	S	4.4, 4.5
6	Building a customized template plugin project by using Ant	R	R	R	4.6
7	Deploying the plugin J2EE application (plugin-name.ear) by using Ant	R	R	R	4.7
8	Placing Plugin Parts in the Guide area and then associating plugins with Operational Content by drawing mapping lines to connect Plugin Parts and Guide Parts	R	N	N	4.8
9	Checking the user property file	R	R	S	4.9
10	Debugging plugins by using the Eclipse debugger function	R	R	R	4.10

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