Settings

Declarative settings

An app can register both admin settings as well as personal settings. Settings are divided into sections to group similar settings together. For example, in the Sharing section are only settings (built-in and of apps) related to sharing.

Settings form

For the settings to show up, three things are necessary:

A class implementing \OCP\Settings\ISettings
A template
The implementing class specified in the app’s info.xml

Below is an example of an implementer of the ISettings interface. It is based on the survey_client solution.

<?php
namespace OCA\YourAppNamespace\Settings;

use OCA\YourAppNamespace\Collector;
use OCP\AppFramework\Http\TemplateResponse;
use OCP\BackgroundJob\IJobList;
use OCP\IConfig;
use OCP\IDateTimeFormatter;
use OCP\IL10N;
use OCP\Settings\ISettings;

class AdminSettings implements ISettings {

        /** @var Collector */
        private $collector;

        /** @var IConfig */
        private $config;

        /** @var IL10N */
        private $l;

        /** @var IDateTimeFormatter */
        private $dateTimeFormatter;

        /** @var IJobList */
        private $jobList;

        /**
         * Admin constructor.
         *
         * @param Collector $collector
         * @param IConfig $config
         * @param IL10N $l
         * @param IDateTimeFormatter $dateTimeFormatter
         * @param IJobList $jobList
         */
        public function __construct(Collector $collector,
                                                                IConfig $config,
                                                                IL10N $l,
                                                                IDateTimeFormatter $dateTimeFormatter,
                                                                IJobList $jobList
        ) {
                $this->collector = $collector;
                $this->config = $config;
                $this->l = $l;
                $this->dateTimeFormatter = $dateTimeFormatter;
                $this->jobList = $jobList;
        }

        /**
         * @return TemplateResponse
         */
        public function getForm() {

                $lastSentReportTime = (int) $this->config->getAppValue('survey_client', 'last_sent', 0);
                if ($lastSentReportTime === 0) {
                        $lastSentReportDate = $this->l->t('Never');
                } else {
                        $lastSentReportDate = $this->dateTimeFormatter->formatDate($lastSentReportTime);
                }

                $lastReport = $this->config->getAppValue('survey_client', 'last_report', '');
                if ($lastReport !== '') {
                        $lastReport = json_encode(json_decode($lastReport, true), JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
                }

                $parameters = [
                        'is_enabled' => $this->jobList->has('OCA\Survey_Client\BackgroundJobs\MonthlyReport', null),
                        'last_sent' => $lastSentReportDate,
                        'last_report' => $lastReport,
                        'categories' => $this->collector->getCategories()
                ];

                return new TemplateResponse('yourappid', 'admin', $parameters);
        }

        /**
         * The section ID, e.g. 'sharing'
         *
         * @return string
         */
        public function getSection() {
                return 'survey_client';
        }

        /**
         * Whether the form should be rather on the top or bottom of
         * the admin section. The forms are arranged in ascending order of the
         * priority values. It is required to return a value between 0 and 100.
         *
         * @return int
         */
        public function getPriority() {
                return 50;
        }

}

The parameters of the constructor will be resolved and an instance created automatically on demand, so that the developer does not need to take care of it.

getSection is supposed to return the section ID of the desired admin section. Currently, built-in values are server, sharing, encryption, logging, additional and tips-tricks. Apps can register sections of their own (see below), and also register into sections of other apps.

getPriority is used to order forms within a section. The lower the value, the more on top it will appear, and vice versa. The result depends on the priorities of other settings.

Nextcloud will look for the templates in a template folder located in your app’s root directory. It should always end on .php, in this case templates/admin.php would be the final relative path.

<?php
/** @var $l \OCP\IL10N */
/** @var $_ array */

script('myappid', 'admin');         // adds a JavaScript file
style('survey_client', 'admin');    // adds a CSS file
?>

<div id="survey_client" class="section">
        <h2><?php p($l->t('Your app')); ?></h2>

        <p>
                <?php p($l->t('Only administrators are allowed to click the red button')); ?>
        </p>

        <button><?php p($l->t('Click red button')); ?></button>

        <p>
                <input id="your_app_magic" name="your_app_magic"
                           type="checkbox" class="checkbox" value="1" <?php if ($_['is_enabled']): ?> checked="checked"<?php endif; ?> />
                <label for="your_app_magic"><?php p($l->t('Do some magic')); ?></label>
        </p>

        <h3><?php p($l->t('Things to define')); ?></h3>
        <?php
        foreach ($_['categories'] as $category => $data) {
                ?>
                <p>
                        <input id="your_app_<?php p($category); ?>" name="your_app_<?php p($category); ?>"
                                   type="checkbox" class="checkbox your_app_category" value="1" <?php if ($data['enabled']): ?> checked="checked"<?php endif; ?> />
                        <label for="your_app_<?php p($category); ?>"><?php print_unescaped($data['displayName']); ?></label>
                </p>
                <?php
        }
        ?>

        <?php if (!empty($_['last_report'])): ?>

        <h3><?php p($l->t('Last report')); ?></h3>

        <p><textarea title="<?php p($l->t('Last report')); ?>" class="last_report" readonly="readonly"><?php p($_['last_report']);?></textarea></p>

        <em class="last_sent"><?php p($l->t('Sent on: %s', [$_['last_sent']])); ?></em>

        <?php endif; ?>

</div>

Then, the implementing class should be added to the info.xml. Settings will be registered upon installation and update. When settings are added to an existing, installed, and enabled app, it should be made sure that the version is increased so Nextcloud can register the class. It is only possible to register one ISettings implementer.

For a more complex example using embedded templates have a look at the implementation of the user_ldap app.

Section

It is also possible that an app registers its own section. This should be done only if there is no fitting corresponding section and the app’s settings form takes a lot of screen estate. Otherwise, register to “additional”.

Basically, it works the same way as with the settings form. There are only two differences. First, the interface that must be implemented is \OCP\Settings\IIconSection.

An example implementation of the IIconSection interface:

<?php
namespace OCA\YourAppNamespace\Settings;

use OCP\IL10N;
use OCP\IURLGenerator;
use OCP\Settings\IIconSection;

class AdminSection implements IIconSection {

        /** @var IL10N */
        private $l;

        /** @var IURLGenerator */
        private $urlGenerator;

        public function __construct(IL10N $l, IURLGenerator $urlGenerator) {
                $this->l = $l;
                $this->urlGenerator = $urlGenerator;
        }

        /**
         * Returns the ID of the section. It is supposed to be a lowercase string
         *
         * @returns string
         */
        public function getID() {
                return 'yourappid'; //or a generic id if feasible
        }

        /**
         * Returns the translated name as it should be displayed, e.g. 'LDAP / AD
         * integration'. Use the L10N service to translate it.
         *
         * @return string
         */
        public function getName() {
                return $this->l->t('Translatable Section Name');
        }

        /**
         * Whether the form should be rather on the top or bottom of
         * the settings navigation. The sections are arranged in ascending order of
         * the priority values. It is required to return a value between 0 and 99.
         *
         * @return int
         */
        public function getPriority() {
                return 80;
        }

        /**
         * The relative path to an icon describing the section
         *
         * @return string
         */
        public function getIcon() {
                return $this->urlGenerator->imagePath('yourapp', 'icon.svg');
        }

}

Also, the section must be registered in the app’s info.xml.

Registering Settings and Sections

As mentioned already both Settings and Sections should be registered in the info.xml of your app This is rather straightforward as you can see in the code snippet below

...
<settings>
    <admin>OCA\YourAppNamespace\Settings\Admin</admin>
    <admin-section>OCA\YourAppNamespace\Settings\AdminSection</admin-section>
    <personal>OCA\YourAppNamespace\Settings\Personal</personal>
    <personal-section>OCA\YourAppNamespace\Settings\PersonalSection</personal-section>
</settings>
...