README

Install and update free EE addons found on Github.

About

How it works: it downloads a zip file from Github to your temp dir and then it unzips it to your third_party/ folder. If the addon already exists (aka you are updating it), it will be overwritten. If the addon has an installer you will be redirected to the installer page. That's it, no other magic involved.

This addon is not meant to be run on a production environment. You are encouraged to use this addon on local and/or staging environments only. Your third_party folder on your production environment should not be writable.

I always use this locally on a version controlled repository, where I can easily roll back any changes.

Installation

• Copy the system/expressionengine/third_party/github_addon_installer/ folder to system/expressionengine/third_party/
• Install the module
• Make sure your system/expressionengine/cache/ and system/expressionengine/third_party/ (or your user-defined third_party) directories are writable

Updating

This addon does not use traditional version releases, but rather rolling releases, as new addons are added to and removed from the manifest. You are encouraged to use Github Addon Installer to update itself.

Requirements

• ExpressionEngine 2.6+
• PHP 5.2+
• *nix server (no Windows/IIS)

Usage

Go to Add-Ons > Modules > Github Addon Installer. You are shown an alphabetical list of all the eligible addons. You can filter this list by status (Installed or Not Installed) or by author. You can also type in keywords to quickly find an addon by name using a fuzzy search.

Click the "Install" button to install an addon.

Config

If you wish to change your temp dir location, you can add this to your EE config file:

$config['github_addon_installer_temp_path'] = '/path/to/dir/'; # default is system/expressionengine/cache/github_addon_installer/

You can disable Github Addon Installer with a config item. This is useful for disabling in production environments.

$config['github_addon_installer_disabled'] = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] === 'my-production-site.com';

Adding an Addon to the Manifest

The list of eligible addons is stored in github_addon_installer/config/manifest.js. This file contains a JSON object. To add something to this list, fork this project, add repos to the list, and submit a pull request. The key of your manifest entry should be the short name of your add-on. The manifest is indented with two spaces, please adhere to that. Please remember that unlike PHP, you cannot leave a trailing comma in a JSON array/object.

Manifest entry examples:

If your repo directory structure is like:

<repo root>
└── my_addon
    └── pi.my_addon.php

Manifest Entry:

"my_addon":{
  "user": "username",
  "repo": "reponame"
}

If your repo directory structure is like this (just the bare addon file in the root of the repo):

<repo root>
└── pi.my_addon.php

Manifest Entry:

"my_addon": {
  "user": "username",
  "repo": "reponame",
  "add_folder": true,
  "stars": 10
}

If your repo directory structure is like:

<repo root>
└── system
    └── expressionengine
        └── third_party
            └── my_addon
                └── pi.my_addon.php

Manifest Entry:

"my_addon": {
  "user": "username",
  "repo": "reponame",
  "addon_path": "system/expressionengine/third_party/",
  "stars": 10
}

If your repo directory structure is like:

<repo root>
├── ee2
│   └── third_party
│       └── my_addon
│           └── pi.my_addon.php
└── themes
    └── third_party
        └── my_addon
            └── my_addon.css

Manifest Entry:

"my_addon": {
  "user": "username",
  "repo": "reponame",
  "addon_path": "ee2/third_party/",
  "theme_path": "themes/third_party/"
}