Hello everyone,
anyone has ever played with the environment.xml file in a plugin context e.g. to implement a custom check?
My goal?
Avoid a plugin to be installed in the wrong Moodle onward version, w/o applying the interesting hack proposed in https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=353727#p1427140.
TIA,
Matteo
Here is my attempt:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<COMPATIBILITY_MATRIX>
<PLUGIN name="local_twittercard">
<CUSTOM_CHECKS>
<CUSTOM_CHECK file="local/twittercard/environmentchecks.php" function="check_moodle_version_onwards" level="required">
<FEEDBACK>
<ON_ERROR message="moodleonwardsversion" />
</FEEDBACK>
</CUSTOM_CHECK>
</CUSTOM_CHECKS>
</PLUGIN>
</COMPATIBILITY_MATRIX>
and my findings, having already read MDL-39840 (2.8+) and MDL-48177 (2.9+):
Has anyone ever successfully implemented a required/blocking custom check in a plugin?
TIA,
Matteo
PLUGIN/CUSTOMCHECKS/CUSTOM_CHECK@file is not relative to $plugindir which is unusual and not expected, IMHO quite a bug since dirroot is hardcodedYour conclusions are incorrect here. The plugin being installed can not be treated as plugin already installed. Because of that all paths are relative to Moodle root not to the plugin root. That is because we do not know if plugin install will succeed or not.
PLUGIN/CUSTOMCHECKS/CUSTOM_CHECK/FEEDBACK/ON_ERROR@message: moodleonwardsversion cannot be a string local to the plugin since it is expected to be in lang/en/admin.php which is IMHO a bug. The setFeedbackStr() function doesn't implement the second parameter when called from a plugin,Again wrong assumptions. Plugin that is not yet installed can not be source for error messages. The entire language strings systems works on assumption that plugin supplying string is installed. I think that implementation should be a bit more flexible and permit putting raw message text within the xml that will not be treated as language string.
Has anyone ever successfully implemented a required/blocking custom check in a plugin?
Probably not.
I'll check it out some more one of these days.
Hi Darko,
TNX a ton for your replies!
Mine to yours:
I'm keen to understand if environment checks could be a resource for plugin development: I fell back to the hack you suggested but with serious drawbacks when using the CI to validate it (via moodle-plugin-ci).
At the end, I guess I'd be more happy w/o imposing any strict limit on the required Moodle version e.g. regarding a MOODLE_33_STABLE plugin branch - which is affected by a different implementation of the Privacy API which breaks Moodle privacy code if that plugin code is installed on 3.4+ by mistake.
HTH,
Matteo
Why don't you ping me on Skype (see my profile here), and we can continue directly. My timezone is -3UTC
I'm not sure what your error is but here is a fully working example of custom check within plugin that uses language strings from the plugin itself and works:
https://github.com/kiklop74/moodle-local_fooplug/tree/MOODLE_33_STABLE
WOW Darko, super-fast!
First, thanks for your kind collaboration and availability: I'm on CEST (+02:00), working on Moodle contributions mostly in my spare/night time.
I'll test your branch, and try to add the version constraint check too guessing that the way I've done via "your hack" is wrong - again, TNX a ton for your reply there, https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=353727#p1487324 , will look at it.
At first glance, here I missed the include in https://github.com/kiklop74/moodle-local_fooplug/blob/17d5d111c74f21dffbd14be4bf1563e3add6500d/environmentchecks.php#L27.
On reading your code I still have the need of some potential Moodle enhancements in this "hidden" area (let us call it enhs and not bugs ):
I'll post here my feedback (not sure when) about your branch - we should update the Wiki at least with a pointer to this thread - and refined thoughts about the enhs above.
HTH,
Matteo
No problem, I'm glad to help.
BTW include is not needed. It works without it as well (which is reflected already in github).
However none of this prevents travis to execute the tests. I suggest you ask the maintainer of the moodle-plugin-ci how this can be accomplished.