Registering to Extension Registry

When you complete your extension development, you can register your extension to Extension Registry so that users can install your extension easily via Extension Manager.

First Registration

If you created your own extension and want to release the first version, then please follow the below steps.

Create package.json

Create a package.json file. name field is a unique identifier for the extension. We recommend to combine your Github id and repository name. For example, if your Github id is john and the repository name is sql-generator, then john.sql-generator could be good for name field. version field has to be set carefully. Recommend to follow Semantic Versioning.

Note that name field should be lowercase alpha-numeric name without spaces. It may include “.” or “_” or “-” characters.

Following is an example for the sql-generator extension.

{
    "name": "john.sql-generator",
    "title": "SQL Generator",
    "description": "SQL generation from ER diagrams.",
    "homepage": "https://github.com/john/sql-generator",
    "issues": "https://github.com/john/sql-generator/issues",
    "keywords": ["sql"],
    "version": "0.9.0",
    "author": {
        "name": "John",
        "email": "john@example.com",
        "url": "https://github.com/john"
    },
    "license": "MIT",
    "engines": {
        "staruml": ">=8.0.0"
    }
}

Caution

The lowest version of engines.staruml should be 8.0.0 or later (e.g. ^8.0.0, >=8.0.0). Extension Manager of StarUML 8 shows and installs only the versions of extensions for StarUML 8 or later, since the extensions for StarUML 7 or earlier are made for Electron (DOM, Node.js modules, …). If you have an extension for StarUML 7 or earlier, release a new version for StarUML 8 (see Scripting API for the differences).

Write README.md

Please write information and user manual of your extension in README.md file.

Upload to Github

Upload your extension source codes to a Github repository. Only Github is supported, so others (e.g. Bitbuckets, etc.) are not supported. When user install an extension, then Extension Manager downloads extension directly from the Github repository.

Create a release

Finally, you have to create a release in the Github repository as described in https://help.github.com/articles/creating-releases/. This is very important. Without this, extensions cannot be downloaded from Extension Manager. The tag version and release title should be matched with the version field in the package.json file.

Send email

After creating a release, just send email to us (support@staruml.io) with your extension repository URL. Then, we will register your extension to Extension Registry within one or two business days.

Upgrading to New Version

If you want to release a new version of your extension already registered in Extension Registry. Please check the followings.

Check version in package.json

Set new version number in version field in package.json.

Create a new release

You have to create a release for every version. Check again that the tag version and release title are matched with the version field in the package.json file.

Send email.

After creating a new release, just let us know that new version is released by sending email to us (support@staruml.io). We will upgrade your extension to the new version within one or two business days.