I'm working with the developer of PF4J(Plugin Framework for Java) to provide better plugin functionality for Wicket. There is already a pf4j-spring and a pf4j-wicket project to provide some basic integration. In order to allow the @SpringBean or @Inject annotations to have access to plugin beans in a child context we need to be able to lookup the ApplicationContext associated with a specific class.
So for example, say I have a MyService bean in a child(plugin) ApplicationContext and that plugin also provides a panel that needs that via a @SpringBean annotation. Spring doesn't allow the parent ApplicationContext to see beans in a child context and for good reason. So we would get an exception saying that bean could not be found since @SpringBean only looks up beans in the parent context. We have code that we have developed that look up the child context like so:
SpringPlugin plugin = (SpringPlugin)PluginManager.whichPlugin(MyService.class);
ApplicationContext pluginContext = plugin.getApplicationContext();
How could I modify or provide this functionality in a custom version of SpringComponentInjector? It uses a ISpringContextLocator but that context locator does not specify the class for which it needs the ApplicationContext.
Any ideas on how this could be achieved?
Thanks for your help!
I'm afraid current SpringComponentInjector is not prepared for such usage. You will have to create your own version.
The problem that I see is that you will have to have either as many IComponentInstantiationListeners as plugins there are. Or create a composite ICIL that delegates to SpringBeanLocators for each plugin. I think the composite would be better. Then you'll have to make sure that a Panel in pluginA cannot use a bean located by SpringBeanLocatorB.
If you manage to do it and you find something in wicket-spring that could be made more generic to help make your version simpler then please let us know and we will consider your suggestion(s)!