Plugins
Plugins contain extensions for STRAP from third-party developers.
They cannot be used if customized classloaders are deactivated in STRAP to enhance security.
This is the case in the STRAPlite version.
The plugin command takes three arguments:
- The name of the Java-class
- One or several jar files
- A number of jar file names from previous versions, that are not used any more.
The action that is performed when the link is pressed depends on the interface that the plugin is implementing.
For example, if the plugin is implementing SequenceAligner the alignment dialog will be opened and
the plugin will be selected as the alignment method.
For convenient developing plugins, the Hotswap-dialog from the Plugin menu in STRAP can be used. It is visible if "advanced" is selected in the User-Profile.
Security of Plugins
Plugins could contain malware.
The user receives a warning message, not to download a plugin if he does not trust the publisher of the plugin.
Untrusted plugins should be tested in a Sandbox
environment.
The language is not confined to Java. A plugin can wrap code written in other programming languages using the class AbstractExecutable.
Hello World Plugin
The jar-file
HelloWorld.jar contains the class file HelloWorld.class. The
two files Old1.jar and Old2.jar simulate files from
previous versions. They are deleted so that they do not interfer with
the current version. Since HelloWorld implements the interface
StrapExtension it is registerd as a listener for events
and its "run()"-method is executed.
plugin HelloWorld , http://www.bioinformatics.org/strap/plugins/HelloWorld.jar Run
Scripts for Plugins
Plugins can react on script lines that start with an asterisk. These are not evaluated by STRAP but are broadcasted to all
objects implementing StrapListener.
This is demonstrated with the following plugin which displays all script lines starting with an asterisk in a JTextArea:
plugin DemoWebLinkControl, http://www.bioinformatics.org/strap/plugins/demoWebLinkControl2.jar, demoWebLinkControl1.jar Run
When the following script line with an asterisk is send to STRAP it will be broadcasted in an event object.
The plugin will receive the event and will print the script line in the JTextArea:
*This line starts with an asterisk and may be evaluated by a plugin Run
*Here another command line Run
Plugins that require libraries such as Biojava
The following Plugin needs Biojava.
It requires the jars biojava.jar and bytecode.jar.
These are given in the file download.txt in the jar-file demoBiojava4.jar.
plugin DemoBiojavaCreateSequence3, http://www.bioinformatics.org/strap/plugins/demoBiojava4.jar Run
In a previous plugin version, an earlier Biojava may have been used.
To get rid of files that are not required any more, a file delete.txt in demoBiojava4.jar may be created which
lists those URLs of previous versions that are not required any more.
For more information see BioJava in STRAP plugins.