External plugins feature

README.md

@@ -119,6 +119,27 @@ Some plugins are available out-of-the-box:
 
 <img src="http://blog.bazoud.com/images/ssd8a.png" alt="">
 
+External Plugins
+================
+
+You can develop independent plugins and load them into Status Dashboard by using the external plugin feature. A plugin example is available at [http://github.com/chamerling/sd-plugin-sample](http://github.com/chamerling/sd-plugin-sample).
+
+Plugins can be installed using npm CLI (from the status-dashboard directory):
+
+    npm install sd-plugin-sample
+
+Or by adding them as dependency in the status-dashboard package.json descriptor.
+
+In order to activate plugins, you have to add them to the plugins.json file (\["sd-plugin-sample"\], \["my_plugin"\]) and turn on the external plugins feature in settings.js:
+
+    plugins : {
+      external: {
+        enable : true,
+        file : __dirname + '/plugins.json'
+      },
+      ...
+    }
+
 REST API
 =======
 

api.js

@@ -51,6 +51,32 @@ module.exports.setup = function (settings) {
     source = source.substr(0, source.length - 3);
     sources[source] = require(__dirname + '/lib/sources/' + source).check;
   });
+
+  if (settings.plugins.external.enable) {
+    var file = settings.plugins.external.file || __dirname + '/plugins.json';
+    log('Loading external plugins defined in ' + file + ' file');
+    var plugins;
+
+    try {
+      plugins = require(file);
+    } catch (err) {
+      log('Can not load external plugins file ' + err);
+      return err;
+    }
+
+    console.log(plugins)
+
+    _.each(plugins, function(item) {
+      try {
+        log('Loading external plugin ' + item);
+        require(item)({api : controller, settings : settings});
+      } catch (err) {
+        log('Can not load external plugin ' + item + ' : ' + err);
+      }
+    })
+  } else {
+    log('External plugins are not enabled, change value in settings.plugins.external.enable if needed');
+  }
 };
 
 /**

plugins.json

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+["sd-plugin-sample"]

settings.js

@@ -117,6 +117,10 @@ exports.create = function() {
     }],
     serviceInterval: 6000,
     plugins : {
+      external: {
+        enable : false,
+        file : __dirname + '/plugins.json'
+      },
       console : {
         enable: false
       },