In this section we would like to document the development of external repositories to work with JA Extensions Manager, a documentation useful for third party developers willing to provide update services via JA Extensions Manager.

• PHP 5.x.x
• Enable CURL PHP extension (Recommended, if not the system will use socket instead)

• Step 1 - Checkout Service' Source Code from this SVN link http://svn.github.com/joomlart/jaupdater-service.git or download a compressed file at JoomlArt Website (link coming soon)
• Step 2 - Build repository to store all your extensions. You can arrange your repository with any structure, but we recommend using a fixed path for the following locations of any extension (with extension properties (core product, type, name of extension, version of extension)
  • path to list of versions:
    Example: /path_to_repository/component/com_jaextmanager/
    This folder must have one XML file called jaupdater.element_info.xml to hold all information about this extensions, so services can get extension' information from it
  • path to specific version:
    Example: path to our "version 1.5.0 of Extensions Manager Component" is: /path_to_repository/component/com_jaextmanager/1.5.0/com_jaextmanager/
• Step 3 - Implement the authentication method
  • We recommend to provide basic interface for authentication
  • Let's implements this interface if you want users to authenticate for using your service. Here is a step-by-step guide to deploy your authentication method:
    • Select a name for your service. (Example: joomlart)
    • go to location: /path_to_service/jaupdater/core/auth/
    • create a file named "authJoomlart.php"
    • create a class named "jaAuthJoomlart"
    • see our class source as an example.
• Step 4 - Configure your service
  • Go to your service' location, open config.php file.
    • Configure authentication method
      Remember the above name, leave blank if no authentication is required
      Example: "WS_AUTH_PROVIDER"=>"joomlart" // your service provider name here
    • Configure the path to repository and the structure of your repository
      Example: with our above structure, the configuration will be:
      "PRODUCT_VERSIONS"=> "{repo}/{type}/{extFolder}/"
      "PRODUCT_LOCATION"=> "{repo}/{type}/{extFolder}/{version}/{extFolder}/"
  • set the CHMOD for the "packages" folder to be writeble (777)
• Step 5 - Publish your service URL to user
• Step 6 - Install JA Extensions Manager Component (com_jaextmanager) and try your service now!

jaupdater.element_info.xml file structure is an XML information file to include the main information:

• Extension general information
• List versions of extension

Important: The list must be sorting in a descending order (always have latest version first)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 
<element_info>
 
 
   <element_detail>
 
       <title>Plugin JA Comment</title>
 
       <name>plg_jacomment</name>
 
       <type>plugin</type>
 
       <joomla>j15</joomla>
 
       <date>2010-02-06 01:32:25</date>
 
       <published>1</published>  
 
       <version>1.1</version>
 
       <license_type>gpl</license_type>
 
   <description>...<description>
 
   <extKey>plg_jacomment</extKey>
 
   <extFolder>plg_jacomment</extFolder>
 
   </element_detail>
 
 
   <versions>
 
       <version>
 
           <name>1.1</name>
 
           <releaseDate>2010-03-07</releaseDate>
 
           <changelogUrl>http://pm.joomlart.com/browse/JAECCOMJAEXTMANAGER?report=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.project:changelog-panel</changelogUrl>
 
       </version>
 
       <version>
 
           <name>1.0</name>
 
           <releaseDate>2010-02-06</releaseDate>
 
           <changelogUrl>http://pm.joomlart.com/browse/JAECCOMJAEXTMANAGER?report=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.project:changelog-panel</changelogUrl>
 
       </version>
 
   </versions>
 
</element_info>