Self-Hosted Plugins

Package as Archives

Follow the Plugins guide to build your plugin. Remember that for each support platform, a separate archive has to be packaged.

iOS

Building the plugin-in to be hosted on a web server, a few simple extra steps are required:

1. Create a directory for packaging, for instance package-plugin. Create a folder named iphone within package-plugin.
2. Place your iOS library (.a) file of your plugin into that directory.
3. Any additional resources that the plugin requires are placed into a new directory named resources. For instance, *.nib files for views. If your plugin depends on other frameworks, place all the compiled frameworks underneath a directory called Frameworks.
4. Place the metadata.lua file also in the directory package-plugin
5. Use a simple packaging script to call the zip/tar program. On Mac you could use the following lines, for instance, placed into a shell script deploy.sh:

#!/bin/bash
tar -czf iphone.tgz libplugin_YOUR-PLUGIN.a metadata.lua resources
scp ../iphone.tgz "youruser@www.your-web-server-where-plugin-will-be-hostd.de:/var/www/YOUR_DOMAIN/plugins"

Finally, for those who will use your Self-Hosted-Plugin, they have to add the location (www.YOUR_DOMAIN.com/plugins/android.tgz) into their build.settings so that the build proccess for Solar2D Apps can find the plugin (see also below).

Android

Building the plugin-in to be published on a web server, a few simple extra steps are required:

1. Create a directory for packaging, for instance package-plugin. Create a folder named android within package-plugin.

2. Create a new gradle file, called corona.gradle and copy all your dependencies and repository definitions from your plugin's build.gradle also into that file.

3. Place the metadata.lua file also in the directory package-plugin

4. Use a simple packaging script to copy the build result into this directory and to call the zip/tar program. On Mac you could use the following lines, for instance, placed into a shell script deploy.sh:

#!/bin/bash
cp ../../build/outputs/aar/plugin-release.aar .
COPYFILE_DISABLE=true tar -czf ../"$(basename "$(pwd)").tgz" --exclude='.[^/]*'  ./*
scp ../android.tgz "youruser@www.your-web-server-where-plugin-will-be-hostd.de:/var/www/YOUR_DOMAIN/plugins"

Finally, for those who will use your Self-Hosted-Plugin, they have to add the location (www.YOUR_DOMAIN.com/plugins/android.tgz) into their build.settings so that the build proccess for Solar2D Apps can find the plugin (see also below).

Lua

The plugin needs to be stored in a flat (no directories) .tgz format. For example, from inside your plugin build folder, run:

COPYFILE_DISABLE=true tar -czf myplugin.tgz myplugin.lua metadata.lua

Web Server Requirements

Upload the resulting .tgz file to a web server that is accessible from the Internet. If necessary, https:// and basic authentication are supported for security and access control. You can use localhost as web server too, since builds are local now. Note that this way machine performing the build would have to run the server.

Running Plugins in the Simulator

Solar2D Simulator only accesses hosted plugins for device builds. When it comes to running these plugins in the Simulator, you can install these plugins locally by placing the plugin file in the following directory:

~/Library/Application Support/Corona/Simulator/Plugins/

This file should match the name used as the key in the plugins table, for example "plugin.hostedplugin" in the build.settings example below.

Device Builds/Settings

In order to use hosted plugins with your Solar2D project, the following changes to build.settings must be made:

1. For each device platform, you must tell Solar2D the URL from which to fetch the plugin .tgz file.

In the supportedPlatforms table for the plugin, each platform property key's value should contain the URL pointing to the .tgz plugin file.

2. For each Simulator platform, you must tell Solar2D not to attempt download of a .tgz file or point to URL with a plugin or Lua stub.

In the supportedPlatforms table for the plugin, the macos and win32 key values should be false. If you wish to use the plugin in the Solar2D Simulator, you can install the plugin locally as noted above or download it from the URL.

Here is an example of including a hosted plugin within build.settings:

settings =
{
    plugins =
    {
        ["plugin.hostedplugin"] =
        {
            publisherId = "com.company",
            supportedPlatforms = { 
                iphone = { url="https://test:abc123@example.com/plugin/iphone.tgz" },
                android = { url="https://test:abc123@example.com/plugin/android.tgz" },
                ["mac-sim"] = false,
                ["win32-sim"] = false
            },
        },
    },
}