Using Plugins

Plugins are a powerful way to add functionality to your application in minutes. Just install as a module and customize with factor-settings.

Purpose

The point of plugins is to add specific functionality. The goal is for them to "just work." which means they have intelligent defaults. Use plugins for anything from adding a blog to a sitemap. While plugins can add new UI, themes are meant to be more opinionated UI frameworks.

Installing Plugins

All that is needed to install a Factor plugin is to add it as a dependency to your project. In other words, add it in your package.json file.

For example, to install the Sitemap Plugin, just run:

npm add @factor/plugin-sitemap

How Plugins Work

Plugins use the plugin API to interact with the core Factor features and deliver an out of the box extension experience to your app.

They are loaded automatically via a loading routine dictated by the main files configuration in the plugin.

Customizing Plugins

Every plugin has different features and functionality. It's best to review the documentation and/or readme for the plugin to know what is available.

Generally, there are 3 ways to use and customize plugins:

• Settings
• Styles
• Plugin API
• Providing imports and settings you can use in the app (e.g. import {example} from @factor/plugin)

Tip: Reference any plugin's factor-settings to know what can be overwritten and configured. Here is an (example).

Disabling plugins

Sometimes extensions may use other plugins in the Factor ecosystem that you don't want. For example, a theme might install an unneeded blog.

To disable any plugin, you can just add their package name to the disable property to your package.json under factor.

{
  "factor": {
    "disable": ["@factor/plugin-blog"]
  }
}