Plugin types

The M in Moodle stands for modular, and the easiest, most maintainable way to add new functionality to Moodle is by using one of the many plugin APIs.

There are many types of plugin you can write:

• Activity modules, see also NEWMODULE Documentation (work in progress)
  • and Sub-Plugins (2.0 Onwards)
• Admin reports
• Assignment types
• Authentication plugins
• Blocks
• Content editors (2.0 onwards)
• Course Formats
• Course reports
• Course importers (2.0 onwards)
• Database fields
• Database presets
• Enrolment plugins
• Filters
• Gradebook report
• Gradebook export
• Gradebook import
• Message senders (2.0 onwards)
• Mnet services
• Plagiarism detection plugins (2.0 onwards)
• Portfolio plugins (2.0 onwards)
• Question types
• Question import/export formats
• Quiz reports
• Repository plugins (2.0 onwards)
• Resource types
• Search engine adapters
• Themes which are different in Moodle 2.0, and earlier versions.
• User profile fields
• Web services (2.0 onwards)
• Workshop allocators (2.0 onwards)
• Workshop forms (2.0 onwards)
• Workshop evaluators (2.0 onwards)

General information that applies to all types of plugins

• Where to put language strings for your plugin
• Defining the database tables for your plugin

Please see the Guidelines for contributed code for an overview of how to contribute to the Moodle code.

Sometimes it is not possible to write a proper plugin for what you want to do, in which case you may have to resort to using the local customisations hook.