@@ -4,7 +4,25 @@ page_description: Panel plugins for Grafana
page_keywords:grafana, plugins, documentation
---
> Our goal is not to have a very extensive documentation but rather have actual code that people can look at. An example implementation of a datasource can be found in the grafana repo under /examples/panel-boilerplate-es5
# Panels
TODO
To interact with the rest of grafana the panel plugin need to export a class in the module.js.
This class have to inherit from sdk.PanelCtrl or sdk.MetricsPanelCtrl and be exported as PanelCtrl.
```javascript
return{
PanelCtrl:BoilerPlatePanelCtrl
};
```
This class will be instancieted once for every panel of its kind in a dashboard and treated as an AngularJs controller.
## MetricsPanelCtrl or PanelCtrl
MetricsPanelCtrl inherits from PanelCtrl and adds some common features for datasource usage. So if your Panel will be working with a datasource you should inherit from MetricsPanelCtrl. If dont need to access any datasource then you should inherit from PanelCtrl instead.
## Implementing a MetricsPanelCtrl
If you choose to inherit from MetricsPanelCtrl you should implement a function called refreshData that will be called by grafana when its time for all panels to get new data.