Web / Apache OFBiz Interview questions
What is the difference between the plugins directory and the older hot-deploy directory?
Older OFBiz releases used a hot-deploy directory for custom or third-party components: drop a component folder in, and the Ant-based build would pick it up automatically alongside the core framework.
Since the move to Gradle, custom and optional components live under the plugins directory instead, each managed as its own Gradle-aware module with an explicit build.gradle, and can be pulled in from the official plugins repository or added manually.
Functionally both mechanisms serve the same purpose - keep customizations separate from core framework code so upgrades don't overwrite them - but plugins is the current, actively supported mechanism used in versions built on the Gradle toolchain.
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