Want to learn Appian Custom plugin Development ,

Question

Hi Everyone, 
 I&rsquo;m hoping to get some advice from the community on how to learn Appian Custom Plugin development. 
 I have 3.5 years of experience as an Appian developer and am familiar with standard Appian development (SAIL, records, process models, integrations, etc.). However, I have no experience with custom plugin development. 
 I have reviewed the Appian documentation, but I feel like I&rsquo;m missing a learning path. It&rsquo;s difficult to figure out: 
 How to start as a beginner 
 What are the actual prerequisites are 
 How to go from developing plugin code to testing in Appian 
 What a good first plugin project should entail 
 I would greatly appreciate any advice from anyone who has experience with: 
 A learning path for plugins 
 Examples or GitHub repos for beginners 
 Advice on local Appian development for testing plugins 
 Things you wish you had known when you started 
 Any advice, links, or personal experience would be greatly appreciated. 
 Thanks in advance for your help.

Varun Teja Gurrapu · Answer

HI vishalk3971 , Definitely you can start creating plugins from scratch following the Documentation, as i have previously worked on plugins creations, i suggest you to go through the Java Basics: You need to have basic understanding of : 1. How Appian SDK Works. 2. How to use the Java libraries & Functions. 3. What is the use of Custom plugin You build, Is it already available or OOTB? 4. Type of Plugins you choose for the usecase, etc., Understand you cannot test the plugin in Cloud instance unless verified by Appian, But you can test only if you have personal On-Premise instance. If you still need more inputs let us know we can guide you here in community. You can refer for more understanding - docs.appian.com/.../Appian_Plug-ins.html Thanks.

Shubham Aware · Answer

Plugin Order: Functions -> Smart Services/Data Types -> Components -> Connected Systems.
Lifecycle: Code (Eclipse/Ant, Appian JARs) -> ant build -> JAR to /plugins/ -> Appian restart -> Test in expr/process/UI. Use local Developer Ed.

Everything is documented here nicely.

https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/26.1/Appian_Plug-ins.html
https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/25.4/Custom_Data_Types_from_Java_Object.html
https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/25.4/component-plugins.html
https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/26.1/Appian_Plug-ins.html

Let me know if you have any specific question.