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Third Party Package Structure¶
Third Party Add-ons in ExpressionEngine are organized into “packages”. An add-on package can include Plugins, Modules, Extensions, and control panel Accessories. Additionally, an add-on package can use its own libraries, models, helpers, views, and language files. Below is a sample map of an add-on package directory, with a break-down of each file’s purpose.
Sample Package “Foo Bar” Directory Map¶
The following is an example of a directory for an add-on package named “Foo Bar”. It’s a dense add-on complete with an Accessory, an Extension, a Module, its own helpers, libraries, models, views, and language resources. Note that in this example that a Plugin file is also included. In a real add-on, you would not have both a module and a plugin, since the module’s front-end file can handle any tasks that a plugin is needed for except field formatting, and we strongly encourage formatting plugins to be distributed as separate add-ons:
/system/expressionengine/third_party/foo_bar
acc.foo_bar.php
config/
ext.foo_bar.php
helpers/
javascript/
language/
libraries/
mcp.foo_bar.php
mod.foo_bar.php
models/
pi.foo_bar.php
upd.foo_bar.php
views/
Details of the “Foo Bar” Package Structure¶
Below are the details of the significance of each file and directory, along with the required naming convention for the PHP class in each add-on file.
acc.foo_bar.php¶
Control Panel Accessory File
File Naming Convention: acc.package_name.php
PHP Class Name: Foo_bar_acc Package name with underscores in
place of spaces, capitalized first letter only, and _acc suffix.
config/¶
(optional) Folder containing config files - see the CodeIgniter user guide section on Config Files for details. You are responsible for uniquely prefixing your config keys.
See also help_menu.php - an optional ExpressionEngine Help menu config file to provide context sensitive help in your module control panel pages.
ext.foo_bar.php¶
Extension File
File Naming Convention: ext.package_name.php
PHP Class Name: Foo_bar_ext Package name with underscores in
place of spaces, capitalized first letter only, and _ext suffix.
helpers/¶
(optional) Folder containing Helper files - see the CodeIgniter user guide section on Helper Functions for details.
javascript/¶
(optional) Folder containing javascript files - refer to the cp library documentation on how to include these files.
language/¶
Folder containing language files, with subfolders for each language. Example:
language/english/foo_bar_lang.php language/spanish/foo_bar_lang.php
mcp.foo_bar.php¶
Module Control Panel File
File Naming Convention: mcp.package_name.php
PHP Class Name: Foo_bar_mcp Package name with underscores in place
of spaces, capitalized first letter only, and _mcp suffix.
mod.foo_bar.php¶
Module Front End File
File Naming Convention: mod.package_name.php
PHP Class Name: Foo_bar Package name with underscores in place
of spaces, capitalized first letter only.
models/¶
(optional) Folder containing data model class files - see the CodeIgniter user guide section on Models for more details.
pi.foo_bar.php¶
Plugin File
File Naming Convention: pi.package_name.php
PHP Class Name: Foo_bar Package name with underscores in place of
spaces, capitalized first letter only.
upd.foo_bar.php¶
Module Installer/Update File
File Naming Convention: upd.package_name.php
PHP Class Name: Foo_bar_upd Package name with underscores in place
of spaces, capitalized first letter only, and _upd suffix.