Plugins vs. Display Objects

As you've seen in the Mura Display Objects section, display objects are an extremely powerful, and useful tool for Mura developers to integrate not only custom displays and applications, they also open a new world of possibilities to injecting custom processing logic and more. Prior to Mura 7.0, this type of advanced functionality was relegated primarily to plugins. However, as you can see, this is no longer the case.

That said, it's become more difficult for Mura developers to determine whether they should develop a plugin, or create a custom display object. The answer to that question pretty much comes down to the following question:

• Do you need a custom administration area and/or, wish to restrict the plugin's functionality to specific sites?
  • Yes
    • Then you'll want to create a plugin. Each plugin can also be restricted to specific sites, and also includes the ability to restrict which groups have access to the plugin's administrator area.
  • No
    • Then creating a display object is perfectly fine. As you'll see in our next version, 7.1, you'll have the ability to create global display objects, that can be shared across the entire installation of Mura.