Hello world Block Plugin

Step 1: Required files & content

create folder structure for forum plugin

The first thing you need to do is create the plugin folder and setup the structure . To do so, open your codoforum folder and browse to sites/default/plugins/. Create the plugin folder helloblock here. Inside the folder create the required files helloblock.info.php & helloblock.php as shown in the image above.

Note: The file names must match the folder name. so, if you have a plugin folder named myplugin, then the two files will be myplugin.info.php & myplugin.php

Step 2: Plugin Info & activation

The very first piece of code added to any plugin should be the plugin information. The helloblock.info.php file tells codoforum that your plugin exists and adds it to the plugin management system in the backend so that it can be activated. As a minimum, the plugin name, version and core is required, but you can provide other information such as a description or author details. The info code can be seen below – this should be added to the helloblock.info.php


<?php

  $info['name'] = 'Hello Block';
  $info['plugin_type']= 'block'; //tell the forum that it is a block  
  $info['description'] = 'A Demo Plugin';
  $info['version'] = '1.x';
  $info['author'] = "codologic";
  $info['author_url'] = 'http://codologic.com';
  $info['license'] = 'MIT License';
  $info['core'] = '1.x'; //works with which version of the forum?

Now open the helloworld.php file and copy the code shown below,


<?php

    echo "Hello  Block! ";

With that added to the info file, open up codoforum admin in your browser and have a look at the plugins section. The plugin should be listed, click install to activate the plugin as shown below.

activate-forum-backend-plugin

Step 3: Display Hello World

Now go to Admin Control Panel, UI Elements >> Blocks >> Add Block
Add a new block as shown below by selecting a desired region and plugin.

The output will now be displayed where ever the region is present.
The output for our region is as shown below.
hello world forum block output