grafana/PLUGIN_DEV.md

# Plugin Development 

This document is not meant as a complete guide for developing plugins but more as a changelog for changes in
Grafana that can impact plugin development. Whenever you as a plugin author encounter an issue with your plugin after
upgrading Grafana please check here before creating an issue. 

## Links

- [Datasource plugin written in TypeScript](https://github.com/grafana/typescript-template-datasource)
- [Simple JSON datasource plugin](https://github.com/grafana/simple-json-datasource)
- [Plugin development guide](http://docs.grafana.org/plugins/developing/development/)
- [Webpack Grafana plugin template project](https://github.com/CorpGlory/grafana-plugin-template-webpack)

## Changes in v4.6

This version of Grafana has big changes that will impact a limited set of plugins. We moved from systemjs to webpack
for built-in plugins & everything internal. External plugins still use systemjs but now with a limited 
set of Grafana components they can import. Plugins can depend on libs like lodash & moment and internal components 
like before using the same import paths. However since everything in Grafana is no longer accessible, a few plugins could encounter issues when importing a Grafana dependency. 

[List of exposed components plugins can import/require](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/master/public/app/features/plugins/plugin_loader.ts#L48)

If you think we missed exposing a crucial lib or Grafana component let us know by opening an issue.  

### Deprecated components 

The angular directive `<spectrum-picker>` is now deprecated (will still work for a version more) but we recommend plugin authors
to upgrade to new `<color-picker color="ctrl.color" onChange="ctrl.onSparklineColorChange"></color-picker>`