developers:start

Developers

This section of the user manual is here to help developers better understand the ins and outs of the software. We here at Geo strive to be "developer friendly":

We provide the software Open Source ¹⁾ for non-trial purchased packages²⁾.
We have created a robust Addon System, whose goal in life, is to make any [reasonable] changes to the Geo software, without needing to modify the base source code, and instead be done through the use of a custom addon. We fully document this addon system through the available Example Addon which documents the addon system by example. It basically implements every single possible thing an addon can do.
Our developers work directly with outside 3rd party developers (That's You!) to add further functionality to the addon system. A lot of the hooks in the software are direct results of this communication. If you as a developer want to do something in the software that is not currently possible using an addon, send in a support ticket to get a direct line to one of our developers. If there is already a way to do what you are requesting, we'll send you in the right direction. If what you need requires a new software hook to be added, in most cases we will add the hook so that the next release will contain it³⁾.
We have started this section in the user manual to further help developers understand how the software works. Be sure to check out the sub-pages which you can navigate to in the menu on the left-hand side, such as the Developers > Addons page and sub-pages.
We have created several step-by-step instructions on doing specific development tasks in Tutorials > Development section in this wiki.
We have generated PHPDocs, always updated for the latest release. It includes documentation for the "publicly accessible" classes and methods found in the 2 files that are encoded for licensing purposes. These are generated directly from the PHP "doc block" comments in the source code, and can be very useful as an API reference.

This area of the user manual, like most of the rest of the manual, explains things people usually have questions about. If you don't find the answer to what you are looking in this manual, send in a support ticket!

¹⁾

Open source meaning that all the files are in "plain text", except for any file(s) directly relating to the software licensing. We allow and encourage modifications to the base code to anyone inclined to do so, however any issues relating to PHP source code modifications are not supported by the Geo support.

²⁾

Trial packages and leased packages have all PHP files fully encoded.

³⁾

We treat adding a new hook like adding a [very] minor feature, which means at our own discretion. We will only add a new hook that is requested if we feel it will benefit the software. That being said, we have only "denied" a request for a hook a very small handful of times, usually when the requested thing can already be accomplished in another way.