Another Plugin Question

I tried your code as is throwing it in the plugins folder and adding the definition to the custom toolbar. The only extra option I had to use to get the button to show up was extraPlugins : 'examenLink'. Below is an example of how I called the editor

CKEDITOR.replace( 'editor1',
   {
      linkShowAdvancedTab : false,
      linkShowTargetTab : false,
      toolbarCanCollapse : false,
      removePlugins : 'elementspath',
      extraPlugins : 'examenLink',
      toolbar : [
                     ['Undo','Redo','-','Cut','Copy','Paste'],
                     ['ExamenLink','Bold','Italic','Underline',],
                     ['JustifyLeft','JustifyCenter','JustifyRight','JustifyBlock'],
                     ['Link','Unlink','Anchor','-','Source','Maximize']
                ]
   });

One thing you will need to make sure though is that you are working with the _source files and not the compressed ckeditor.js file. To do that you simply incude the ckeditor_source.js file instead of ckeditor.js file in your page.

<script type="text/javascript" src="../ckeditor_source.js"></script>

As for your other questions -
A) I really don't want to modify the obfuscated ckeditor.js source file.
>> In my opinion you really shouldn't be modifying the ckeditor.js file directly. It contains a lot of special characters/symbols which may get corrupted if the file encoding is not maintained. Of course the code itself is not supposed to be user friendly as it has been compressed.

B) There must be a better way to register my plugin than modifying the source code. There's got to be a more reasonable way.
>> Adding a new plugin to CKEditor would be considered as a development effort so you have to work with the source files first to get your code working and then package/release it for use.

C) "This is discussed later in the documentation." is not discussed later in the doc.
>> By this I think you mean the steps to actually "repackage" the source files to generate the compressed ckeditor.js file. This is quite a simple step actually and I'd be glad to help you out with it.

But first test your plugin with the source files to make sure it is working. I can add to the thread with directions on how to package the source files once you get your plugin working

Hope that helps,
Shri

Oh I forgot to ask, what platform are you working on? I've used the packager tool on Windows XP and I think the directions may be a bit different for Unix platforms.

And also as a side note, it is not absolutely necessary that you have to package your plugin with the other source files. If you get your plugin to work in the _source directory, then you can also just copy it to the ckeditor\plugins directory (under the main ckeditor folder) and then include the ckeditor.js file in your page with the same config options. That should work too.

Repackaging the files I think would be needed (recommended) if your plugin code is quite large and you see performance impacts. I don't have any metrics with me on when and why custom plugins should or should not be packaged. I'll leave that question to be answered by the developers.

What you will need for packaging the files is a tool called CKPackager http://svn.fckeditor.net/CKPackager/trunk/bin/. I am not sure if there is another place where you can download it from but I work directly with the SVN so I have it checked out directly from there. What you would need from that page is those two files, the .exe and .jar.

Now I myself haven't played a lot with the packager tool and its options but have successfully been able to package the source files. So here are the steps -

1. Place both those files in your main ckeditor directory. Doesn't have to be in the same directory really but I just do it for the ease of command line use.
2. In your root ckeditor folder open the file named ckeditor.pack. This file contains the definitions/declarations for the source files being packaged. Under output : 'ckeditor.js' if you scroll to the bottom you will see how the other plugins are referenced to be packaged in the ckeditor.js file. Add your custom plugin definition to the end of the file, example in your case '_source/plugins/examenLink/plugin.js'.
3. Open the command prompt to your ckeditor root directory and run the following (Note: The -v at the end is optional. It just spits out a verbose log of all the files that got packaged and the compression details.)

ckpackager.exe ckeditor.pack -v

And that should be it. Your custom plugin should now be included in the "repackaged" ckeditor.js file and ready for use.

Hope that helps,
Shri

Well if the icon showed up when you were working with the _source files it should work with the compressed file as well. Remember that there is a "plugins" folder under the root ckeditor as well. I think you can place your custom plugin directory (with the "images" directory) under ckeditor\plugins the icon should be displayed.

As I said before it is not absolutely necessary that you package your plugin code with the ckeditor.js and it can be just placed under the root directory as is

I actually was able to get the image to show up both in the _source folder and the root folder. You just have to make sure your image path in the plugin definition matches the actual folder path. So for example the plugin.js is in the _source folder and the image path is as below then the image needs to be under ckeditor\_source\plugins\examenLink\images\anchor.gif.

      editor.ui.addButton( 'ExamenLink',
         {
            label : editor.lang.link.toolbar,
            command : 'examenLink',
            icon: this.path + 'images/anchor.gif'
         } );

If it is under the root plugins folder then the path should be ckeditor\plugins\examenLink\images\anchor.gif. I tested both cases and the image showed up just fine for me.

Not a problem. Glad to be of help