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Using Plugins¶

ExpressionEngine is designed so that features can be added through the use of Plugins. A list of first party ExpressionEngine plugins can be found on EllisLab’s GitHub page, along with installation and usage instructions for each one. It is important to review the notes for the specific plugin you wish to use.

Installation¶

Follow these steps to install a plugin:

Download the Plugin to your local computer. You’ll usually need to unzip the file.
Upload the Plugin’s folder to your system/expressionengine/third_party/ folder.

For instance, the No Follow plugin would be placed like so:

system/expressionengine/third_party/no_follow/pi.no_follow.php

Once the Plugin is installed, you should be able to see it listed in the Plugin Manager in your ExpressionEngine Control Panel.

Note

Some Plugins may have additional installation requirements specific to that particular Plugin. Be sure to read any instructions, readme files, etc. that may come with the Plugin.

Basic Usage¶

Within your templates you’ll typically wrap the item you want affected by the plugin:

{exp:xml_encode}
        some content
{/exp:xml_encode}

In the above example, the content would be XML Encoded.

Nested Plugins¶

It is possible to nest Plugins in order for content to be affected by more than one plugin. For example, you can do this:

{exp:word_limit total="35"}
        {exp:xml_encode}
                some content
        {/exp:xml_encode}
{/exp:word_limit}

By default, ExpressionEngine will process the innermost Plugin first, then the next Plugin, and so on until all the plugins wrapping a given piece of content have been parsed. In the above example, the content is XML Encoded first and then the result of that is limited to 35 words.

Changing Parsing Order¶

You may change the parsing order and instruct ExpressionEngine to parse an outer Plugin first. This is done by adding a parse=”inward” parameter to the Plugin opening tag. Using that parameter will tell EE to parse that Plugin before parsing any Plugins inside of it.

parse="inward"

Examples¶

Here are some examples to help illustrate the parsing order.

{exp:magpie url="http://some-site.com" parse="inward"}
        {items}
                <a href="{link}">{title}</a><br />
                {exp:word_limit total="20"}
                        {content}
                {/exp:word_limit}<br />
        {/items}
{/exp:magpie}

With the above, the “magpie” Plugin will be parsed first. This will allow the content of the {content} variable to be available to the other, nested Plugin: “word_limit”.

Here is a much more complicated example that demonstrates both parsing orders in action.

{exp:magpie url="http://some-site.com" limit="15" refresh="720" parse="inward"}
        <ul>
                {items}
                        <li><a href="{link}">{title}</a><br />
                                {exp:word_limit total="35"}
                                        {exp:xml_encode}
                                                {content}
                                        {/exp:xml_encode}
                                {/exp:word_limit}
                        </li>
                {/items}
        </ul>
{/exp:magpie}

The outer “magpie” Plugin has the parameter set to parse inward, so it is parsed first. This makes the {content} variable’s content available to the other Plugins. Next, is the “word_limit” Plugin. However, since by default EE parses Plugins outward, the “xml_encode” Plugin is parsed first and then “word_limit” after it. In this way, “word_limit” will never erase the closing tag for the “xml_encode” Plugin.