Play 2 – modules, plugins, what’s the difference?

There seems to be some confusion regarding Play 2 modules and plugins. I imagine this is because the two are often synonymous. In Play (both versions – 1 and 2) there are distinct differences. In this post, I’m going to look at what a plugin is, how to implement one in Java and Scala, and how to import plugins from modules.

Plugins

A Play 2 plugin is a class that extends the Java class play.Plugin or has the Scala trait play.api.Plugin. This class may be something you have written in your own application, or it may be a plugin from a module.

Writing a plugin in Java

Create new class, and have it extend play.Plugin. There are three methods available to override – onStart(), onStop() and enabled(). You can also add a constructor that takes a play.Application argument.

To have some functionality occur when the application starts, override onStart(). To have functionality occur when the application stops, override onStop(). It’s that simple! Here’s an example implementation which doesn’t override enabled().

package be.objectify.example;

import play.Application;
import play.Configuration;
import play.Logger;
import play.Plugin;

/**
 * An example Play 2 plugin written in Java.
 */
public class MyExamplePlugin extends Plugin
{
    private final Application application;

    public MyExamplePlugin(Application application)
    {
        this.application = application;
    }

    @Override
    public void onStart()
    {
        Configuration configuration = application.configuration();
        // you can now access the application.conf settings, including any custom ones you have added
        Logger.info("MyExamplePlugin has started");
    }

    @Override
    public void onStop()
    {
        // you may want to tidy up resources here
        Logger.info("MyExamplePlugin has stopped");
    }
}

Writing a plugin in Scala

Create a new Scala class, and have it extends play.api.Plugin. Just as in the Java version, there are onStart(), onStop() and enabled() methods along with an play.api.Application constructor argument. Here’s the Scala implementation:

package be.objectify.example

import play.api.{Logger, Application, Plugin}

/**
 * An example Play 2 plugin written in Scala.
 */
class MyExamplePlugin(application: Application) extends Plugin
{
  override def onStart()
  {
    val configuration = application.configuration;
    // you can now access the application.conf settings, including any custom ones you have added
    Logger.info("MyExamplePlugin has started");
  }

  override def onStop()
  {
    // you may want to tidy up resources here
    Logger.info("MyExamplePlugin has stopped");
  }
}

Hooking a plugin into your application

Regardless of the implementation language, plugins are invoked directly by Play once you have added them to the conf/play.plugins file. This file isn’t created when you start a new application, so you need to add it yourself. The syntax is <priority>:<classname>. For example, to add the example plugin to your project, you would use

10000:be.objectify.example.MyExamplePlugin

The class name is that of your plugin. The priority determines the order in which plugins start up, and just needs to be a number that is larger or smaller than that of another plugin. If you have several plugins, you can explicitly order them:

5000:be.objectify.example.MyExamplePlugin
10000:be.objectify.example.MyOtherExamplePlugin

Modules

A module can be thought of as a reusable application that you can include in your own app. It’s analogous to a third-party library that adds specific functionality. A module can contain plugins, which you can hook into your app using the conf/play.plugins file.

For example, if you’re using Deadbolt 2 you would need to add the following to your play.plugins file:

10000:be.objectify.deadbolt.DeadboltPlugin

A list of Play 2 modules can be found on the Play 2 GitHub wiki.

You can read more on creating modules for Play 2 here and here.

Reference: Play 2 – modules, plugins, what’s the difference? from our JCG partner Steve Chaloner at the Objectify blog.