Introduction to Plugins

In computing, a plugin is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing software
application. When an application supports plugins, it enables customisation. In the context of Dalet
Flex, various parts of the platform allow for the development and configuration of plugins. This guide
provides an overview of the existing plugins. This guide does not cover customer-specific plugins. It
covers all plugins that are bundled with every deployment of Dalet Flex.

• Internal Plugins: Internal plugins run inside Dalet Flex and are configured and managed within the Dalet Flex console. Examples are the transcode action and the storage resource.
• Adapter Plugins: Adapter plugins are internal Dalet Flex components that translate Dalet Flex
  commands to other product interfaces. Adapters help jobs to translate internal Dalet Flex messages to messages recognised by external resources such as transcoders and QC systems.
• Apps: Apps are external web and mobile apps that are deployed in other applications or run in web browsers and connect remotely to Dalet Flex via Dalet Flex's API. Examples of apps are the Adobe CQ player plugin and the Adobe Premiere and Prelude Partner Panel plugins which communicate with Dalet Flex via REST.

Internal Plugins

Internal plugins reside within Dalet Flex. Dalet Flex's architecture is designed to ensure that
powerful plugins can be created with minimal coding effort. Dalet Flex's configuration model allows
for configuration of plugins as well as scriptable fields. This ensures that your plugin will be
versatile and easy to reuse.

Internal plugins comprise two functionalities:

Plugin Code: Custom Java code written against Dalet Flex's API.

Plugin Configuration XML: A Dalet Flex Metadata XML file with details about configuration parameters used to configure the plugin once installed.

The screen shots below show what a plugin configuration file looks like inside a plugin and also once loaded in the UI.

Dalet Flex's plugin configuration is managed by metadata definitions. As such, each parameter has a field type. For a full list of field types, please see the field types section.

The following internal plugin types are supported.

• Actions - Plugins for Dalet Flex action types
• Event Handlers - Plugins for Dalet Flex event types
• Players - Plugins for Dalet Flex players
• Resources - Plugins for Dalet Flex resource types
• Quotas - Plugins for Dalet Flex quotas
• Timed Actions - Plugins for Dalet Flex timed actions
• Wizards - Plugins for wizards

Adaptor plugins are special low-level internal plugins that translate Dalet Flex commands into messages that communicate with external resources. Examples of adapater plugins in Dalet Flex are the transcode adapter and the QC adapter.

Adapters are extremely useful when resources from different vendors are required to work in tandem. For example, one may wish to use an Elemental transcode resource and also a Telestream transcode resource. Without a transcode adaptor, one would require two separate transcode action types, two separate transcode profile types and two separate transcode resource plugins. With an adapter in place, one can use the default transcode plugin and the built in Dalet Flex transcode profile to transcode using two competing products from different vendors at the same time. So in essence, the transcode Adapter does the work of translating messages at a low level to communicate to each external resource.

With adapters, supporting new vendor solutions is as simple as updating a single adapter rather than implementing a range of new plugins.

The following internal adapter plugins are supported:

• Transcode Adapter
• QC Adapter

Apps

Apps are created using other software APIs and typically connect to Dalet Flex through Dalet Flex's REST API.

Some example of apps created are as follows:

• Editing - Plugins for external editing software
• Logging - Plugins for external logging software
• CMS - Plugins for external content management systems

Plugin Capabilities

For each plugin, we provide the following information in addition to the name and description. Please note not all fields are shown for all plugins as some are not relevant in some cases.

Field	Value	Explanation
Icon	[ ]	Plugin icon
Sub-type	Publish	Sub-type of this plugin
Deployment	Internal	Whether the plugin is deployed inside Dalet Flex or within another product
Supports Configuration		Whether this plugin supports configuration
Supports Scripting		Whether configuration supports scripting
Scripting Context	User, asset	What Dalet Flex objects can be referenced from within the scripting context
Compatibility	5.x	What versions of Dalet Flex this plugin works for
Lifecycle	Stable	Maturity of this plugin (Experimental, Unstable or Stable)

If the plugin supports configuration, then the configuration properties are provided:

Vendor Plugins

In this section we list the vendor solutions that Dalet Flex plugs in to through its plugin framework.

Please note that we integrate with a wider range of solutions than those listed below. Many solution vendors support integration via standard protocols, for example, FTP, SMB/CIFS, REST, SOAP etc. In addition, Dalet Flex's API can be used by developers to create their own script-based or Java-based plugins.