First Attempt PHP Plugin

Question

New to php and plugin building. I am a front end guy but need to learn templates building in Joomla. I have a small one working that gives you the ability to insert and change some text in the function onContentAfterTitle.

class plgContentmyplugin extends JPlugin
    {
public function onContentAfterTitle($context, $article, $params,  $limitstart)
{
    if ($this->params->get('alt-text')) {
        return $this->params->get('alt-text');
    } else {
        return "<p>Hello World!</p>";
    }

Now I am understanding that the XML determines the backend options in the admin control panel. Then using the php to display it.

I want to be able to extend this plugin, for mostly learning purposes. I have some XML displaying options to change font colour and size. I am just a little unsure on the php and which function I should be calling in order to achieve that. Should I be using one of the other parameters? e.g. $context or $article? Any help would be much appreciated.

<field name="font-size" type="list" default="12" description="What size font should the message use?" label="Font size">
            <option value="8">8px</option>
            <option value="12">12px</option>
             <option value="16">16px</option>
        </field>

Again my intention here is to expand my php knowledge and ultimately be able to build templates that other people can use. I have already worked out how to assemble and hack a template by just styling what is already there which would be totally acceptable but I am not sure how much the end user will need to change and the options they will need. Which does require building on the backend.

Answer 1

So in your XML, you're using name="font-size" for one of the parameters. To call this in the plugin, you simply use the following:

$fontsize = $this->params->get('font-size');

You can also add a fallback (2nd argument) for the parameter if no value is assigned:

$fontsize = $this->params->get('font-size', 12);