Take advantage of the new abilities of Elxis 4.2 for developers.

Elxis 4.2 has some new features a developer can use to improve his extensions. Four new parameter types were added which can be used in any extension (module, component, template, plugin, etc). Parameter type of database allows you to perform database queries and display results as a drop down select box. Parameters datetime, date and time display unified date input fields. If an extension having any of these new parameter types is used on an Elxis 4.0 or 4.1 site these elements will be displayed as standard text input boxes (Elxis 4.x fall back support).

In your extensions XML files you can also define custom tabs which will be displayed in extension edit page. These tabs can load content from either a local file (php or html) or display inline HTML content. Moreover you can define a custom action which will be executed after clicking the apply or save buttons. Tabs and custom on-save action provides you new ways to extend the functionality of your modules, templates, plugins and any other Elxis extension. Note that custom tabs will not be displayed on Elxis 4.0 and 4.1 sites and custom action will not be executed. If this new functionality is required in your extension then set in XML file the extension's core dependency to 4.2+.

Two more things to note when developing extensions for Elxis 4.2+. You can now load a module by its ID. To do so provide the exact module ID in method module of the elxisDocument library. You can also set the pathway separator to anything you want. We were able to do so before only via the elxisPathway library. Since Elxis 4.2 you can do the same directly from the elxisDocument library which makes it handy to use in template's index.php file.