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Working with Assets

Plugins may require external non-source files as part of their functionality. These can be text files, executables, databases, images, etc. The JS SDK provides the “assets.yml” file to allow users to specify files which are to be included as part of the plugin build process.

Example: Reading data from a file included in the assets.yml

  1. Create an assets.yml file in the root folder of the plugin
  2. Create an assets directory in the root of the plugin directory
    • The assets directory is not required for the assets.yml to work as files listed in assets.yml can specify the exact path. We are only creating the assets directory here to keep our assets organised in the plugin directory
  3. Create a new text file my-text-file.txt in the assets directory. Add some text to the file.

  4. In the assets.yml file, add the following configuration to include the text file as part of the plugin build

    - name: files
  path: assets/my-text-file.txt
    • name will be the name of the folder where your files will be stored in the plugin once it is built. We will use this value during runtime to specify the file location
    • path specifies the location of the file. Path can also accept glob patterns, e.g. assets/* will copy all files and directories in the assets folder

To access the file at runtime, the Plugin SDK provides a constant which is the location of the assets folder during runtime, ASSETS_PATH. Use this in combination with the name provided for the assets in the assets.yml to access the file in an action. Below is an example of an action that reads the file and outputs the contents to a command window:

import { CommandAction, ASSETS_PATH } from '@logitech/plugin-sdk';
import { exec } from 'child_process';
import { promises as fs } from 'fs';

export class ReadFileAction extends CommandAction {
  name = 'read_file';
  displayName = 'Read file';
  description = 'Reads the contents of the sample file';

  async onKeyDown() {
    const data = await fs.readFile(`${ASSETS_PATH}\\files\\my-text-file.txt`, 'utf8');
    exec(`start cmd.exe /K echo ${data}`);
  }
}