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Volto addons#

There are several advanced scenarios where we might want to have more control and flexibility beyond using the plain Volto project to build a site.

We can build Volto add-on products and make them available as generic Javascript packages that can be included in any Volto project. By doing so we can provide code and component reutilization across projects and, of course, benefit from open source collaboration.

The addon can be published to an NPM registry or directly installed from github by Yarn. By using mrs-develop, it's possible to have a workflow similar to zc.buildout's mr.developer, where you can "checkout" an addon for development.

An addon can be almost anything that a Volto project can be. They can:

  • provide additional views and blocks
  • override or extend Volto's builtin views, blocks, settings
  • shadow (customize) Volto's (or another addon's) modules
  • register custom routes
  • provide custom Redux actions and reducers
  • register custom Express middleware for Volto's server process
  • tweak Volto's Webpack configuration, load custom Razzle and Webpack plugins
  • even provide a custom theme, just like a regular Volto project does.

Configuring a Volto project to use an addon#

You can install a Volto addon just like any other JS package:

yarn add name-of-addon

If the addon is not published on NPM, you can retrieve it directly from Github:

yarn add collective/volto-dropdownmenu

Next, you'll need to add the addon (identified by its JS package name) to the addons key of your Volto project's package.json. More details in the next section.

Loading addon configuration#

As a convenience, an addon can export configuration functions that can mutate, in-place, the overall ~/config registry. An addon can export multiple configurations methods, making it possible to selectively choose which specific addon functionality you want to load.

In your Volto project's package.json you can allow the addon to alter the global configuration by adding, in the addons key, a list of volto addon package names, like:

{
  "name": "my-nice-volto-project",
  ...
  "addons": [
    "acme-volto-foo-addon",
    "@plone/some-addon",
    "collective-another-volto-addon"
  ],
  ...
}

Warning

Adding the addon package to the addons key is obligatory! It allows Volto to treat that package properly and provide it with BabelJS language features. In Plone terminology, it is like including a Python egg to the zcml section of zc.buildout.

Some addons might choose to allow the Volto project to selectively load some of their configuration, so they may offer additional configuration functions, which you can load by overloading the addon name in the addons package.json key, like so:

{
  "name": "my-nice-volto-project",
  ...
  "addons": [
    "acme-volto-foo-addon:loadOptionalBlocks,overrideSomeDefaultBlock",
    "volto-ga"
  ],
}

Info

The additional comma-separated names should be exported from the addon package's index.js. The main configuration function should be exported as the default. An addon's default configuration method will always be loaded.

If for some reason, you want to manually load the addon, you could always do, in your project's config.js module:

import loadExampleAddon, { enableOptionalBlocks } from 'volto-example-addon';
import * as voltoConfig from '@plone/volto/config';

const config = enableOptionalBlocks(loadExampleAddon(voltoConfig));

export blocks = {
  ...config.blocks,
}
...

As this is a common operation, Volto provides a helper method for this:

import { applyConfig } from '@plone/volto/helpers';
import * as voltoConfig from '@plone/volto/config';

const config = applyConfig([
    enableOptionalBlocks,
    loadExampleAddon
], voltoConfig);

export blocks = {
  ...config.blocks,
}

The applyConfig helper ensures that each configuration methods returns the config object, avoiding odd and hard to track errors when developing addons.

Creating addons#

Volto addon packages are just CommonJS packages. The only requirement is that they point the main key of their package.json to a module that exports, as a default function that acts as a Volto configuration loader.

Although you could simply use npm init to generate an addon initial code, we now have a nice Yeoman-based generator that you can use:

npm install -g @plone/generator-volto
yo @plone/volto:addon [<addonName>] [options]
Volto will automatically provide aliases for your (unreleased) package, so that once you've released it, you don't need to change import paths, since you can use the final ones from the very beginning. This means that you can use imports such as import { Something } from '@plone/my-volto-addon' without any extra configuration.

Use mrs-developer to manage the development cycle#

Eric Brehault ported this amazing Python tool, which provides a way to pull a package from git and set it up as a dependency for the current project codebase.

To facilitate addon development lifecycle we recommend using mrs-developer.

By doing this, you can develop both the project and the add-on product as if they were both part of the current codebase. Once the add-on development is done, you can publish the package to an npm repository.

$ yarn add mrs-developer

Then, in package.json:

  "scripts": {
    "develop": "missdev --config=jsconfig.json --output=addons",
  }

We can configure mrs-developer to use any directory that you want. Here we are telling it to create the directory src/addons and put the packages managed by mrs-developer inside.

mrs.developer.json#

This is the configuration file that instructs mrs-developer from where it has to pull the packages. So, create mrs.developer.json and add:

{
  "acme-volto-foo-addon": {
    "package": "@acme/volto-foo-addon",
    "url": "[email protected]:acme/my-volto-addon.git",
    "path": "src"
  }
}

Then run:

yarn develop

Now the addon is found in src/addons/.

Info

package property is optional, set it up only if your package has a scope. src is required if the content of your addon is located in the src directory (but, as that is the convention recommended for all Volto add-on packages, you will always include it)

If you want to know more about mrs-developer config options, please refer to its npm page.

jsconfig.json#

mrs-developer automatically creates this file for you, but if you choose not to use mrs-developer, you'll have to add something like this to your jsconfig.json file in the Volto project root:

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "paths": {
            "acme-volto-foo-addon": [
                "addons/acme-volto-foo-addon/src"
            ]
        },
        "baseUrl": "src"
    }
}

Warning

Please note that both paths and baseUrl are required to match your project layout.

Tip

You should use the src path inside your package and point the main key in package.json to the index.js file in src/index.js.

Customizations#

Addon packages can include customization folders, just like the Volto projects. The customizations are resolved in the order: addons (as sorted in the addons key of your project's package.json) then the customizations in the Volto project, last one wins.

Tip

See the Advanced customization scenarios section on how to enhance this pattern and how to include customizations inside addons.

Providing addon configuration#

The default export of your addon main index.js file should be a function with the signature config => config. That is, it should take the global configuration object and return it, possibly mutated or changed. So your main index.js will look like:

export default function applyConfig(config) {
  config.blocks.blocksConfig.faq_viewer = {
    id: 'faq_viewer',
    title: 'FAQ Viewer',
    edit: FAQBlockEdit,
    view: FAQBlockView,
    icon: chartIcon,
    group: 'common',
    restricted: false,
    mostUsed: true,
    sidebarTab: 1,
    security: {
      addPermission: [],
      view: [],
    },
  };
  return config;
}

And the package.json file of your addon:

{
  "main": "src/index.js",
}

Warning

An addon's default configuration method will always be loaded.

Multiple addon configurations#

You can export additional configuration functions from your addon's main index.js.

import applyConfig, {loadOptionalBlocks,overrideSomeDefaultBlock} from './config';

export { loadOptionalBlocks, overrideSomeDefaultBlock };
export default applyConfig;

Add third-party dependencies to your addon#

If you're developing the addon and you wish to add an external dependency, you'll have to switch your project to be a Yarn Workspaces root.

So you'll need to add, in your Volto project's package.json:

"private": true,
"workspaces": [],

Then populate the workspaces key with the path to your development addons:

"workspaces": [
  "src/addons/my-volto-addon"
]
You'll have to manage the addon dependencies via the workspace root (your Volto project). For example, to add a new dependency:

yarn workspace @plone/my-volto-addon add some-third-party-package

You can run yarn workspaces info to see a list of workspaces defined.

In case you want to add new dependencies to the Volto project, now you'll have to run the yarn add command with the -W switch:

yarn add -W some-dependency

Testing addons#

We should let jest know about our aliases and make them available to it to resolve them, so in package.json:

  "jest": {
    "moduleNameMapper": {
      "@plone/volto/(.*)$": "<rootDir>/node_modules/@plone/volto/src/$1",
      "@package/(.*)$": "<rootDir>/src/$1",
      "@plone/some-volto-addon/(.*)$": "<rootDir>/src/addons/@plone/some-volto-addon/src/$1",
      'my-volto-addon/(.*)$': '<rootDir>/src/addons/my-volto-addon/src/$1',
      "~/(.*)$": "<rootDir>/src/$1"
    },

Tip

We're in the process of moving the default scaffolding generators to provide a jest.config.js file in Volto, making this step unneeded.

You can use yarn test src/addons/addon-name to run tests.

Code linting#

If you have generated your Volto project recently (after the summer of 2020), you don't have to do anything to have automatic integration with ESLint, otherwise make sure to upgrade your project's .eslintrc to the .eslintrc.js version, according to the Upgrade Guide.