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• How to make your plugin configurable – Introducing the Piwik Platform

  18 septembre 2014, par Thomas Steur — Development

  This is the next post of our blog series where we introduce the capabilities of the Piwik platform (our previous post was How to add new pages and menu items to Piwik). This time you will learn how to define settings for your plugin. For this tutorial you will need to have basic knowledge of PHP.

  What can I do with settings ?

  The Settings API offers you a simple way to make your plugin configurable within the Admin interface of Piwik without having to deal with HTML, JavaScript, CSS or CSRF tokens. There are many things you can do with settings, for instance let users configure :

  • connection infos to a third party system such as a WordPress installation.
  • select a metric to be displayed in your widget
  • select a refresh interval for your widget
  • which menu items, reports or widgets should be displayed
  • and much more

  Getting started

  In this series of posts, we assume that you have already set up your development environment. If not, visit the Piwik Developer Zone where you’ll find the tutorial Setting up Piwik.

  To summarize the things you have to do to get setup :

  • Install Piwik (for instance via git).
  • Activate the developer mode : ./console development:enable --full.
  • Generate a plugin : ./console generate:plugin --name="MySettingsPlugin". There should now be a folder plugins/MySettingsPlugin.
  • And activate the created plugin under Settings => Plugins.

  Let’s start creating settings

  We start by using the Piwik Console to create a settings template :

  ./console generate:settings

  The command will ask you to enter the name of the plugin the settings should belong to. I will simply use the above chosen plugin name “MySettingsPlugin”. There should now be a file plugins/MySettingsPlugin/Settings.php which contains already some examples to get you started easily. To see the settings in action go to Settings => Plugin settings in your Piwik installation.

  

  Adding one or more settings

  Settings are added in the init() method of the settings class by calling the method addSetting() and passing an instance of a UserSetting or SystemSetting object. How to create a setting is explained in the next chapter.

  Customising a setting

  To create a setting you have to define a name along some options. For instance which input field should be displayed, what type of value you expect, a validator and more. Depending on the input field we might automatically validate the values for you. For example if you define available values for a select field then we make sure to validate and store only a valid value which provides good security out of the box.

  For a list of possible properties have a look at the SystemSetting and UserSetting API reference.

  class Settings extends \Piwik\Plugin\Settings
  
  {
  
      public $refreshInterval;
  
  
  
      protected function init()
  
      {
  
          $this->setIntroduction('Here you can specify the settings for this plugin.');
  
  
  
          $this->createRefreshIntervalSetting();
  
      }
  
  
  
      private function createRefreshIntervalSetting()
  
      {
  
          $this->refreshInterval = new UserSetting('refreshInterval', 'Refresh Interval');
  
          $this->refreshInterval->type = static::TYPE_INT;
  
          $this->refreshInterval->uiControlType = static::CONTROL_TEXT;
  
          $this->refreshInterval->uiControlAttributes = array('size' => 3);
  
          $this->refreshInterval->description = 'How often the value should be updated';
  
          $this->refreshInterval->inlineHelp = 'Enter a number which is >= 15';
  
          $this->refreshInterval->defaultValue = '30';
  
          $this->refreshInterval->validate = function ($value, $setting) {
  
              if ($value < 15) {
  
                  throw new \Exception('Value is invalid');
  
              }
  
          };
  
  
  
          $this->addSetting($this->refreshInterval);
  
      }
  
  }

  In this example you can see some of those properties. Here we create a setting named “refreshInterval” with the display name “Refresh Interval”. We want the setting value to be an integer and the user should enter this value in a text input field having the size 3. There is a description, an inline help and a default value of 30. The validate function makes sure to accept only integers that are at least 15, otherwise an error in the UI will be shown.

  

  You do not always have to specify a PHP type and a uiControlType. For instance if you specify a PHP type boolean we automatically display a checkbox by default. Similarly if you specify to display a checkbox we assume that you want a boolean value.

  Accessing settings values

  You can access the value of a setting in a widget, in a controller, in a report or anywhere you want. To access the value create an instance of your settings class and get the value like this :

  $settings = new Settings();
  
  $interval = $settings->refreshInterval->getValue()

  Type of settings

  The Piwik platform differentiates between UserSetting and SystemSetting. User settings can be configured by any logged in user and each user can configure the setting independently. The Piwik platform makes sure that settings are stored per user and that a user cannot see another users configuration.

  A system setting applies to all of your users. It can be configured only by a user who has super user access. By default, the value can be read only by a super user as well but often you want to have it readable by anyone or at least by logged in users. If you set a setting readable the value will still be only displayed to super users but you will always be able to access the value in the background.

  Imagine you are building a widget that fetches data from a third party system where you need to configure an API URL and token. While no regular user should see the value of both settings, the value should still be readable by any logged in user. Otherwise when logged in users cannot read the setting value then the data cannot be fetched in the background when this user wants to see the content of the widget. Solve this by making the setting readable by the current user :

  $setting->readableByCurrentUser = !Piwik::isUserIsAnonymous();

  Publishing your Plugin on the Marketplace

  In case you want to share your settings or your plugin with other Piwik users you can do this by pushing your plugin to a public GitHub repository and creating a tag. Easy as that. Read more about how to distribute a plugin.

  Advanced features

  Isn’t it easy to create settings for plugins ? We never even created a file ! The Settings API already offers many possibilities but it might not yet be as flexible as your use case requires. So let us know in case you are missing something and we hope to add this feature at some point in the future.
  
  If you have any feedback regarding our APIs or our guides in the Developer Zone feel free to send it to us.

• How to expose new API methods in the HTTP Reporting API – Introducing the Piwik Platform

  26 février 2015, par Thomas Steur — Development

  This is the next post of our blog series where we introduce the capabilities of the Piwik platform (our previous post was How to write UI tests for your plugin). This time you’ll learn how to extend our Reporting API. For this tutorial you will need to have basic knowledge of PHP.

  What is Piwik’s Reporting API ?

  It allows third party applications to access analytics data and manipulate miscellaneous data (such as users or websites) through HTTP requests.

  What is it good for ?

  The Reporting API is used by the Piwik UI to render reports, to manage users, and more. If you want to add a feature to the Piwik UI, you might have to expose a method in the API to access this data. As the API is called via HTTP it allows you to fetch or manipulate any Piwik related data from anywhere. In these exposed API methods you can do pretty much anything you want, for example :

  • Enhance existing reports with additional data
  • Filter existing reports based on custom rules
  • Access the database and generate custom reports
  • Persist and read any data
  • Request server information

  Getting started

  In this series of posts, we assume that you have already set up your development environment. If not, visit the Piwik Developer Zone where you’ll find the tutorial Setting up Piwik.

  To summarize the things you have to do to get setup :

  • Install Piwik (for instance via git).
  • Activate the developer mode : ./console development:enable.
  • Generate a plugin : ./console generate:plugin --name="MyApiPlugin". There should now be a folder plugins/MyApiPlugin.
  • And activate the created plugin : ./console plugin:activate "MyApiPlugin"

  Let’s start creating an API

  We start by using the Piwik Console to create a new API :

  ./console generate:api

  The command will ask you to enter the name of the plugin the created API should belong to. I will simply use the above chosen plugin name “MyApiPlugin”. There should now be a file plugins/MyApiPlugin/API.php which contains already an example to get you started easily :

  class API extends \Piwik\Plugin\API
  {
      public function getAnswerToLife($truth = true)
      {
          if ($truth) {
              return 42;
          }
   
          return 24;
      }
   
      public function getExampleReport($idSite, $period, $date, $wonderful = false)
      {
          $table = DataTable::makeFromSimpleArray(array(
              array('label' => 'My Label 1', 'nb_visits' => '1'),
              array('label' => 'My Label 2', 'nb_visits' => '5'),
          ));
   
          return $table;
      }
  }
  Télécharger

  Any public method in that file will be available via the Reporting API. For example the method getAnswerToLife can be called via this URL : index.php?module=API&method=MyApiPlugin.getAnswerToLife. The URL parameter method is a combination of your plugin name and the method name within this class.

  Passing parameters to your method

  Both example methods define some parameters. To pass any value to a parameter of your method simply specify them by name in the URL. For example ...&method=MyApiPlugin.getExampleReport&idSite=1&period=week&date=today&wonderful=1 to pass values to the parameters of the method getExampleReport.

  Returning a value

  In an API method you can return any boolean, number, string or array value. A resource or an object cannot be returned unless it implements the DataTableInterface such as DataTable (the primary data structure used to store analytics data in Piwik), DataTable\Map (stores a set of DataTables) and DataTable\Simple (a DataTable where every row has two columns : label and value).

  Did you know ? You can choose the response format of your API request by appending a parameter &format=JSON|XML|CSV|... to the URL. Check out the Reporting API Reference for more information.

  Best practices

  Check user permissions

  Do not forget to check whether a user actually has permissions to access data or to perform an action. If you’re not familiar with Piwik’s permissions and how to check them read our User Permission guide.

  Keep API methods small

  At Piwik we aim to write clean code. Therefore, we recommend to keep API methods small (separation of concerns). An API pretty much acts like a Controller :

  public function createLdapUser($idSite, $login, $password)
  {
      Piwik::checkUserHasAdminAccess($idSite);
      $this->checkLogin($login);
      $this->checkPassword($password);
      
      $myModel = new LdapModel();
      $success = $myModel->createUser($idSite, $login, $password);
      
      return $success;
  }
  Télécharger

  This is not only easy to read, it will also allow you to create simple tests for LdapModel (without having to bootstrap the whole Piwik layer) and you will be able to reuse it in other places if needed.

  Calling APIs of other plugins

  For example if you want to fetch an existing report from another plugin, say a list of all Page URLs, do not request this report by calling that method directly :

  \Piwik\Plugins\Actions\API::getInstance()->getPageUrls($idSite, $period, $date);

  . Instead, issue a new API request :

  $report = \Piwik\API\Request::processRequest('Actions.getPageUrls', array(
  
      'idSite' => $idSite,
  
      'period' => $period,
  
      'date'   => $date,
  
  ));

  This has several advantages :

  • It avoids a fatal error if the requested plugin is not available on a Piwik installation
  • Other plugins can extend the called API method via events (adding additional report data to a report, doing additional permission checks) but those events will be only triggered when requesting the report as suggested
  • If the method parameters change, your request will most likely still work

  Publishing your Plugin on the Marketplace

  In case you want to share your API with other Piwik users you can do this by pushing your plugin to a public GitHub repository and creating a tag. Easy as that. Read more about how to distribute a plugin and best practices when publishing a plugin.

  Isn’t it easy to create a API ? We never even created a file ! If you have any feedback regarding our APIs or our guides in the Developer Zone feel free to send it to us.

• How to expose new API methods in the HTTP Reporting API – Introducing the Piwik Platform

  26 février 2015, par Thomas Steur — Development

  This is the next post of our blog series where we introduce the capabilities of the Piwik platform (our previous post was How to write UI tests for your plugin). This time you’ll learn how to extend our Reporting API. For this tutorial you will need to have basic knowledge of PHP.

  What is Piwik’s Reporting API ?

  It allows third party applications to access analytics data and manipulate miscellaneous data (such as users or websites) through HTTP requests.

  What is it good for ?

  The Reporting API is used by the Piwik UI to render reports, to manage users, and more. If you want to add a feature to the Piwik UI, you might have to expose a method in the API to access this data. As the API is called via HTTP it allows you to fetch or manipulate any Piwik related data from anywhere. In these exposed API methods you can do pretty much anything you want, for example :

  • Enhance existing reports with additional data
  • Filter existing reports based on custom rules
  • Access the database and generate custom reports
  • Persist and read any data
  • Request server information

  Getting started

  In this series of posts, we assume that you have already set up your development environment. If not, visit the Piwik Developer Zone where you’ll find the tutorial Setting up Piwik.

  To summarize the things you have to do to get setup :

  • Install Piwik (for instance via git).
  • Activate the developer mode : ./console development:enable.
  • Generate a plugin : ./console generate:plugin --name="MyApiPlugin". There should now be a folder plugins/MyApiPlugin.
  • And activate the created plugin : ./console plugin:activate "MyApiPlugin"

  Let’s start creating an API

  We start by using the Piwik Console to create a new API :

  ./console generate:api

  The command will ask you to enter the name of the plugin the created API should belong to. I will simply use the above chosen plugin name “MyApiPlugin”. There should now be a file plugins/MyApiPlugin/API.php which contains already an example to get you started easily :

  class API extends \Piwik\Plugin\API
  {
      public function getAnswerToLife($truth = true)
      {
          if ($truth) {
              return 42;
          }
   
          return 24;
      }
   
      public function getExampleReport($idSite, $period, $date, $wonderful = false)
      {
          $table = DataTable::makeFromSimpleArray(array(
              array('label' => 'My Label 1', 'nb_visits' => '1'),
              array('label' => 'My Label 2', 'nb_visits' => '5'),
          ));
   
          return $table;
      }
  }
  Télécharger

  Any public method in that file will be available via the Reporting API. For example the method getAnswerToLife can be called via this URL : index.php?module=API&method=MyApiPlugin.getAnswerToLife. The URL parameter method is a combination of your plugin name and the method name within this class.

  Passing parameters to your method

  Both example methods define some parameters. To pass any value to a parameter of your method simply specify them by name in the URL. For example ...&method=MyApiPlugin.getExampleReport&idSite=1&period=week&date=today&wonderful=1 to pass values to the parameters of the method getExampleReport.

  Returning a value

  In an API method you can return any boolean, number, string or array value. A resource or an object cannot be returned unless it implements the DataTableInterface such as DataTable (the primary data structure used to store analytics data in Piwik), DataTable\Map (stores a set of DataTables) and DataTable\Simple (a DataTable where every row has two columns : label and value).

  Did you know ? You can choose the response format of your API request by appending a parameter &format=JSON|XML|CSV|... to the URL. Check out the Reporting API Reference for more information.

  Best practices

  Check user permissions

  Do not forget to check whether a user actually has permissions to access data or to perform an action. If you’re not familiar with Piwik’s permissions and how to check them read our User Permission guide.

  Keep API methods small

  At Piwik we aim to write clean code. Therefore, we recommend to keep API methods small (separation of concerns). An API pretty much acts like a Controller :

  public function createLdapUser($idSite, $login, $password)
  {
      Piwik::checkUserHasAdminAccess($idSite);
      $this->checkLogin($login);
      $this->checkPassword($password);
      
      $myModel = new LdapModel();
      $success = $myModel->createUser($idSite, $login, $password);
      
      return $success;
  }
  Télécharger

  This is not only easy to read, it will also allow you to create simple tests for LdapModel (without having to bootstrap the whole Piwik layer) and you will be able to reuse it in other places if needed.

  Calling APIs of other plugins

  For example if you want to fetch an existing report from another plugin, say a list of all Page URLs, do not request this report by calling that method directly :

  \Piwik\Plugins\Actions\API::getInstance()->getPageUrls($idSite, $period, $date);

  . Instead, issue a new API request :

  $report = \Piwik\API\Request::processRequest('Actions.getPageUrls', array(
  
      'idSite' => $idSite,
  
      'period' => $period,
  
      'date'   => $date,
  
  ));

  This has several advantages :

  • It avoids a fatal error if the requested plugin is not available on a Piwik installation
  • Other plugins can extend the called API method via events (adding additional report data to a report, doing additional permission checks) but those events will be only triggered when requesting the report as suggested
  • If the method parameters change, your request will most likely still work

  Publishing your Plugin on the Marketplace

  In case you want to share your API with other Piwik users you can do this by pushing your plugin to a public GitHub repository and creating a tag. Easy as that. Read more about how to distribute a plugin and best practices when publishing a plugin.

  Isn’t it easy to create a API ? We never even created a file ! If you have any feedback regarding our APIs or our guides in the Developer Zone feel free to send it to us.