Plugin Framework Documentation

Atlassian's plugin framework allows developers to create plugins which extend the functionality of Atlassian products such as JIRA, Confluence and others.

Overview of the the development platform, libraries and utilities:

• Development Platform for Plugin Framework 2

Details of the Plugin Framework:

• Plugin Framework
  • Creating your Plugin Descriptor
  • Plugin Module Types
  • Adding Plugin and Module Resources
  • Adding a Configuration UI for your Plugin
  • Ensuring Standard Page Decoration in your Plugin UI
  • Running your Plugin in the Reference Implementation
  • Going from Plugin to OSGi Bundle
• Plugin Framework Release Notes
  • Plugin Framework 2.1.2 Release Notes
  • Plugin Framework 2.1.1 Release Notes
  • Plugin Framework 2.1 Release Notes
  • Plugin Framework 2.0.5 Release Notes
  • Plugin Framework 2.0.4 Release Notes
  • Plugin Framework 2.0.3 Release Notes
• Plugin Framework Version Matrix
• Plugin Framework Knowledge Base
  • Atlassian reference implementation notes
  • JDom OSGI issues
  • Velocity OSGI issues

The Atlassian Plugin Framework 2 replaces the original Atlassian Plugins framework, described in the Developer Network. The new framework is based on OSGi, a dynamic module system for Java.

Almost every Atlassian product has a version of the Atlassian Plugin Framework, however, they may not be the same version. Eventually, each Atlassian application (Confluence, FishEye, Crucible, Crowd, etc) will be upgraded to version 2.x, but many are running version 1 today. If you are developing a plugin, you need to know what your version is capable of, and how it will interact with other versions.

The Atlassian Plugin Framework 2 is available in some, but not all, Atlassian applications

The matrix below shows the applications which support version 2.x of the Plugin Framework. The applications are listed horizontally across the top and the Plugin Framework 2.x versions are listed vertically on the left.

• Version numbers next to a tick show the earliest release of the application which supports the relevant framework version.
• Version numbers in brackets show a future release expected to support the relevant framework version.

Plugin Framework	Confluence	Crowd	Crucible	FishEye	JIRA
2.0		Crowd 1.5	Crucible 1.6	FishEye 1.6
2.1	(Confluence 2.10)

• Development Platform for Plugin Framework 2
• Plugin Framework Knowledge Base
• Developer Network
• Atlassian Forums
• Issue Tracker

You can download the Plugin Framework documentation in PDF, HTML or XML formats.

Plugin Framework 2.1 Documentation
Plugin Framework 2.0 Documentation

This documentation contains version-specific information about the Atlassian Plugin Framework 2, i.e. the plugin library which is part of the plugin development platform. The Plugin Framework is under continuous development. With each new release, we may include new plugin module types and other improvements.

This documentation will be under version control, so that at any time you can read about the components of a particular version of the Plugin Framework.

For more general and static information about writing plugins and using the new plugin development platform, please take a look at the Atlassian Developer Network.

A plugin is a bundle of code, resources and configuration files that can be dropped into an Atlassian product to add new functionality or change the behaviour of existing features.

Every plugin is made up of one or more plugin modules. A single plugin may do many things, while a plugin module represents a single function of the plugin.

There are two versions of plugins in the Atlassian Plugin Framework 2:

• Version 1 — These may be static (deployed in WEB-INF/lib) or dynamic (via the web UI, only in Confluence) and should work the same as they did in version 1 of the Atlassian Plugin Framework. The capabilities and features available to version 1 plugins vary significantly across products.
• Version 2 — These plugins are dynamically deployed on an internal OSGi container to provide a consistent set of features and behaviours, regardless of the application the plugin is running on. Version 2 plugins have to be specifically declared as such, using the pluginsVersion="2" attribute in atlassian-plugin.xml.