Create Plugin Metadata Class

ExampleMetaData.cs

// Example code
using ShadowPluginLoader.Attributes;
using ShadowPluginLoader.WinUI.Models;

namespace ShadowExample.Core.Plugins;

[ExportMeta]
public record ExampleMetaData : AbstractPluginMetaData
{
    [Meta(Required = true, PropertyGroupName = "Author")]
    public string Author { get; init; }
}

Export Metadata

The ExportMeta attribute indicates that this class is metadata that needs to be exported.

Your metadata class must use ExportMeta.

It will automatically export as a metadata definition file for subsequent plugins to use.

Inheritance

Your metadata class must inherit from AbstractPluginMetaData.

AbstractPluginMetaData is the default plugin metadata AbstractPluginMetaData.cs

Additional Metadata Items

In the example above, we added a new metadata item Author.

public string Author { get; init; }

• All metadata items need to use property accessors
  • PluginEntryPointType ({ get;private set; })
  • Other types ({ get; init; })
• Use Array for lists
• Supports other basic types and entity classes

Additional Configuration for Metadata Items

    [Meta(Required = true, PropertyGroupName = "Author")]
    public string Author { get; init; }

In the above, we used the Meta attribute.

This attribute is used to configure our metadata items.

Configurable Item	Type	Default	Description
Required	bool	true	Whether it's required
Exclude	bool	false	Whether to ignore this property, ignored properties won't be exported to define file
Regex	string?	null	Regular expression for matching the property value
PropertyGroupName	string	Property name	Corresponding MSBuild name for metadata, case sensitive
Converter	Type	Custom converter	Custom converter inheriting from JsonConverter
AsString	string	Whether to save as string	Serialize as string
Nullable	bool	false	Whether to allow this property to be null Automatically determined by whether class name has question mark