Application extension registry
WAS V7 has enabled the Eclipse extension framework for applications to use. Applications are extensible when they contain a defined extension point and provide extension processing code.
An application can be dynamically plugged in to another extensible application.
The application extension registry uses the Eclipse plug-in descriptor format and APIs as the standard extensibility mechanism for WebSphere applications.
Extension points are described in plugin.xml, which can be edited using a text editor or Eclipse's Plug-in Development Environment (PDE).
WAS implementations to the Eclipse model
WAS ND V7.0...
- Implements all of the extension registry-related interfaces from Eclipse 3.1.
- Some plugin.xml attributes are not used, for example, <runtime>.
- Handles the addition of plug-ins to the registry, when the containing J2EE module starts, and plug-ins are dismissed and removed from the registry when the containing J2EE module stops.
- Access to an IExtensionRegistry object is through the JNDI, instead of by using the Platform.getExtensionRegistry method in the Eclipse Workbench.
- Filtering capability is available by providing a filter implementation.
Available Eclipse 3.1 interfaces
The following Eclipse 3.1 interfaces are available on WAS:
- Extension registry API
- Extension point API
- Extension API
- Configuration element API
- Registry change listener API
- Registry change event API
- Extension delta API
- Status API
The following interfaces are recognized and processed the same as in Eclipse:
Related concepts
Application extension registry filtering
Related tasks
Define an extension for the registry filter
Related
Web apps: Links
plugin.xml file
API documentation