NAME

       Mason::Manual::Plugins - Mason plugins

DESCRIPTION

       A Mason plugin modifies behavior in one or more of Mason's main classes simultaneously,
       using Moose roles. Many Mason features, even some that might be considered "core", are
       implemented with plugins.

FINDING PLUGINS

       By convention plugins live in the "Mason::Plugin::*" namespace, and plugin bundles live in
       the "Mason::PluginBundle::*" namespace. You can find both with this search:

           http://search.cpan.org/search?query=Mason%3A%3APlugin&mode=all

USING PLUGINS

       Pass a list of plugin specs to the Mason constructor:

           Mason->new(plugins =>
                   [
                    'OnePlugin',
                    'AnotherPlugin',
                    '+My::Mason::Plugin::AThirdPlugin',
                    '@APluginBundle',
                    '+My::Mason::PluginBundle::AnotherBundle',
                    '-PluginIDontLike',
                   ]);

       Each plugin spec can be one of the following;

       •   A simple name, which will have "Mason::Plugin::" prepended to it.

       •   A bundle name, prefixed with '@', which will have "Mason::PluginBundle::" prepended to
           it.

       •   A full plugin or bundle class name prefixed with '+'.

       •   Any spec prefixed with '-', which means do not include these plugin(s) in the final
           list.

       See Mason::t::Plugins::test_plugin_specs in the Mason distribution for some examples.

DEFAULT PLUGINS

       Mason will always add the @Default bundle regardless of whether you pass your own list.
       You can remove individual default plugins that you don't like:

           plugins => ['-DollarDot', ...]

       or the whole list:

           plugins => ['-@Default', ...]

CREATING PLUGINS

       Note: If you want to modify behavior for a particular application only, it might be more
       convenient to create subclasses.

       A plugin consists of the main plugin class and one or more roles. The main class currently
       looks like this:

           package Mason::Plugin::MyPlugin;
           use Moose;
           with 'Mason::Plugin';

           # Optional: declare other plugin dependencies
           method requires_plugins { qw(A @D) }

           1;

           __END__

           =pod

           =head1 NAME

           Mason::Plugin::MyPlugin - My plugin

           ....

       Its main responsibilities are to include the role 'Mason::Plugin' and document itself. It
       may also specify a "requires_plugins" that returns a list of dependencies with the same
       syntax as the "plugins" parameter to "Mason-"new>.

       The real action is in the role classes, which live underneath, and each modify a single
       Mason class:

           package Mason::Plugin::MyPlugin::Interp;
           use Mason::PluginRole;

           # Modify Mason::Interp

           ...

           package Mason::Plugin::MyPlugin::Compilation;
           use Mason::PluginRole;

           # Modify Mason::Compilation

           ...

       When a plugin is applied, each of its roles will be automatically applied to the
       appropriate Mason class. For example, in the example above
       "Mason::Plugin::MyPlugin::Interp" and "Mason::Plugin::MyPlugin::Compilation" will be
       applied to Mason::Interp and Mason::Compilation respectively.

   Pluggable Mason classes
       As of this writing the following Mason classes can be modified with plugins:

           Mason::CodeCache
           Mason::Compilation
           Mason::Component
           Mason::Component::ClassMeta
           Mason::Component::Import
           Mason::Component::Moose
           Mason::Interp
           Mason::Request
           Mason::Result

   Extra classes in plugin
       If you have extra classes in your plugin that aren't automatically providing a role to a
       Mason class, put them in "Extra.pm" or the "Extra" subdirectory, e.g.

          package Mason::Plugin::MyPlugin::Extra::Utils;
          ...

       That will ensure that your classname will not conflict with a future Mason class name.

CREATING PLUGIN BUNDLES

       A plugin bundle just collects one or more plugins and/or other bundles. It looks like
       this:

           package Mason::PluginBundle::MyBundle
           use Moose;
           with 'Mason::PluginBundle';

           sub requires_plugins {
               return (
                   'A',
                   'B',
                   '+My::Plugin::C',
                   '@D',
                   '+My::PluginBundle::E',
                   );
           }

           1;

           __END__

           =pod

           =head1 NAME

           Mason::PluginBundle::MyBundle - My plugin bundle

           =head1 INCLUDED PLUGINS

           =over

           =item A
           =item B
           =item +My::Plugin::C
           =item @D
           =item +My::PluginBundle::E

           =back

           ....

       The "requires_plugins" method returns a list of entries, with the same syntax as the
       "plugins" parameter to "Mason-"new>.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Thanks to Ricardo Signes <rjbs@cpan.org> for Dist::Zilla and Pod::Weaver, which got me
       thinking in plugins and lent the plugin and bundle name syntax.

SEE ALSO

       Mason

AUTHOR

       Jonathan Swartz <swartz@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Jonathan Swartz.

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
       the Perl 5 programming language system itself.