ort_plugindecode - Textpattern plugin decoder

baby · 2007-12-14 17:23:58

This is a plugin decoder (the reciprocal of zem_tpl), ort_plugindecode.php is a script that allows you to decode a Textpattern plugin in order to get a source .php file you can edit and modify and then compile using the standard zem_tpl

This tool was inspired by this forum thread.

Martín Laudati was a student in the Instituto de Tecnología ORT and, when asked to find a project to develop a plugin for Textpattern, which he had to do to pass the course Seminario de Aplicaciones, he chose not to do a plugin but rather a plugin decoder.

Initially the decoder only worked on-line in a browser, but I asked him to generate also a command line utility, he combined both in one.

Download or use on-line

You can download a zip file containing the plugin, the source script, and a small readme.txt here

Alternatively, you can just use it on-line here

Now, full plugin, easier to use

Walter Mir, Martín Zeni and Iván de Miguel, students of the first semester 2008, developed version 2.0 which became a Textpattern plugin so that you get the same functionality from the admin interface (of course, the two original modes will continue to work as always (the first triple play plugin) :-)

Documentation can be found in the Resources site

Last edited by baby (2010-11-08 22:40:27)

the_ghost · 2007-12-14 23:24:11

Why not to make there online encode tool?

baby · 2007-12-14 23:43:45

Isn’t this part of what ied_plugin_composer does?

Otherwise, it could be done… maybe refactoring Alex’s zem_tpl

I’ll have that in mind for the next semester… maybe I’ll get a group of students that can pluginize the current ort_plugindecode and also make it bi-directional…

net-carver · 2007-12-15 04:59:55

Mariano

thanks for posting this project. It looks interesting but I haven’t tried it yet.

Just wanted to point out that ied_plugin_composer also has a decoder built-in and it allows you to save a php file that corresponds to the compiled plugin. However it doesn’t output it in zem’s format.

baby · 2008-06-06 04:47:06

Coming soon

Walter Mir, Martín Zeni and Iván de Miguel, students of the first semester 2008, are working on version 2.0 which will become a Textpattern plugin so that you’ll get the same functionality from the admin interface (of course, the two original modes will continue to work as always (the first triple play plugin) :-)

Note that this is not a direct competitor to ied_plugin_composer.

ort_plugindecoder is much modest in what it does, but it does provide something I understand ied_plugin_composer doesn’t, which is, you can get a php source file compatible with zem_tpl, so you can pick that old plugin for which you only have the compiled version, decode it, adapt it to your needs, and recompile it.

Bloke · 2008-06-06 15:17:29

baby wrote:

Note that this is not a direct competitor to ied_plugin_composer… you can get a php source file compatible with zem_tpl, so you can pick that old plugin for which you only have the compiled version, decode it, adapt it to your needs, and recompile it.

Thanks for this Mariano; excellent news. I’ve often wondered if I should build the “reverse” function into ied_plugin_composer for these exact instances but never really got round to adding the “uncompose” feature. Now I won’t need to do it, which saves me some brain power, thank you!

A few things:

since it recreates the zem_tpl (or at least a close approximation) would you mind checking that the resulting decompiled plugin can be uploaded to the plugin cache dir and that ied_plugin_composer reads all the fields correctly?
similarly, would you mind checking that the same plugin can be saved back out of ied_plugin_composer properly? If there are any issues, please let me know so I can see if the composer needs to be fixed
there is at least one unofficial version of the template by net-carver which swaps the order of the ‘code’ and ‘help’ blocks. You may wish to consider offering an option to decompile into either format since some people prefer the code first. The plugin composer supports them both

Again, thanks for picking this up.

baby · 2008-06-06 15:51:24

I’ll try to look into it… when I have the time… I’m not the actual programmer, but my students are…

Regards.

baby · 2010-11-08 22:43:23

I finally got to write the help and produce a complete usable version 2.0 :-)

You can now download the new version which is really easy to use as a plain textpattern plugin. You can decode your installed plugins, or paste a plugin and decode it or decode a plugin you have on your local disk.

See the documentation in textpattern.org

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2007-12-14 17:23:58