Extension Manager Application

Install/update/remove extensions in/from the wiki

Description

This application provides an UI to manage the extensions within a wiki. It is build on top of the Extension Module and is accessible from the XWiki administration. Extensions are mainly XARs (e.g. XWiki applications, wiki macros) and JARs (server side code including especially components and scrip services).

Searching for an Extension

XWiki uses by default the following extension repositories:

• The xwiki.org Extensions Repository
• The XWiki Public Nexus Maven Repository

You can register more repositories, following the Extension Module documentation. You can even create your own XWiki extension repository using the Extension Repository Application. The Search UI will take all the registered repositories into account.

There are two ways to search for a extension.

Simple Search

The search bar has an input where you can type keywords and a drop down list where you can select the type of extension to search for. 

You can search through:

• All extensions: from all registered repositories, except the Maven based repositories like XWiki Public Nexus Maven Repository or your local Maven repository. For these you'll have to use the Advanced Search.
• Installed extensions
• Local extensions: these are cached extensions; whenever you install an extension it is cached locally and remains cached after you uninstall it; you'll notice that local extensions include all installed extensions
• Core extensions: these are extensions bundled with XWiki Enterprise; most of them are jars packed within the XWiki Enterprise war.

Advanced Search

If you know the id and the version of an extension you can use the advanced search form. The id of a Maven extension is created like this: groupId:artifactId. Note that the advanced search looks in all the registered repositories, ignoring the simple search filters.

Extension Display

The extension display shows you the extension title, version, status, authors and summary and it allows you to perform some actions on the extension.

You can find more about an extension by clicking on the "Show details" button.

Description

The description tab provides various information like the extension license and repository. The extension id can be used with the advanced search. The feature information represents either old identifiers that the extension had or identifiers of extensions that are repackaged/bundled by this one. The extension type is currently one of XAR or JAR. And you can also retrieve the list of stable versions.

Dependencies

An extension can have dependencies. The dependency tab lists both upstream and downstream direct dependencies.

You can see the status of a dependency and follow the link to get more information (e.g. determine transitive dependencies). The dependency status is also color coded:

• green for installed and core dependencies
• yellow when a different version is installed or provided
• red when the dependency version is not compatible with the current state of the wiki (e.g. an older version is provided)

Progress Log

The progress log tab shows information about the action that is currently performed on the extension or the last action that was performed. You can see for instance what happened when an extension has been installed.

Extension Actions

Depending on the type of an extension, you can perform the following actions. Note that the system will currently perform only one action at any time. You can click install on more extensions but they will be put in a queue and installed one after another. This is true for all users, meaning that if an user is upgrading an extension and a different user wants to install another extension, the install job will be put in a queue and executed after the upgrade triggered by the first user is done.

Also, it is important to understand that actions are performed asynchronously. After you trigger and action you can close your browser and the process will continue to run on the server. When you reopen the browser and go back to the extension you'll see:

• either the action still running (if it's a long process)
• or its progress log

Install

If an extension is not already installed then you should be able to install it. Of course, you can't install a core extension because it is already available (core extension are bundled with XWiki Enterprise). The installation process has two main steps:

• the creation of the install plan: the extension manager will collect all the transitive dependencies of the extension you want to install and will determine if they all are compatible with the current state of your XWiki Enterprise. This step fails when the first incompatibility is encountered (e.g. if one of the dependencies is a newer version of a core extension). You cannot continue the installation if this step fails.

  

• the actual install: the extension manager will download all the transitive dependencies and will install them.

  

From the main wiki of a wiki farm you also have the option to install an extension on all the wikis.

Upgrade

You can upgrade installed extensions but not core extensions. Core extensions are upgraded by upgrading the XWiki Enterprise war.

Similar to the install action, the upgrade has two steps: the creation of the upgrade plan and the actual upgrade.

Merge Conflict

When your upgrade a XAR extension and the extension manager fails to automatically merge your changes with the changes from the new version of the extension the extension manager will guide you to resolve the conflict.

Currently you can choose which version to keep between:

• the previous version that was installed
• the current version with your changes
• the next version that you want to upgrade to
• the merged version, what the extension manager has managed to automatically merge between the current version and the next version.

In the near future we hope to allow you to edit the merge.

In order to help you choose the right action when a merge conflict occurs we let you compare the aforementioned versions.

Changes are displayed in the same way they are when you compare two versions from a document's history. Diffs are computed and displayed with the help of the diff module.

Downgrade

You can install an older version of an extension even if a newer version is currently installed. Core extensions cannot be downgraded. In order to downgrade an extension you have installed you need to search for one of its older versions. Currently this is possible only using the advanced search.

Uninstall

Installed extensions can be uninstalled. Core extensions cannot be uninstalled.

Extension Updater

Starting with version 5.0 the Extension Manager application has a new section that lists the available extension updates. This will help you keep all your extensions up to date.