Documentation/CLI Support in CTK

This page is a working draft and does not contain final information.

Command Line Interface (CLI) support in CTK will primarly focus on providing an API for working with existing CLI modules. Providing utiltities and tools for creating CLI modules from scratch is a desired addition but there are no concrete plans for this yet.

Experimental Code

Some experimental code can be found here:

https://github.com/commontk/CTK/tree/cli-module-support

Enable the following CMake options to be able to play with the code:

• BUILD_TESTING (for creating CLI test modules)
• CTK_APP_ctkCommandLineModuleExplorer (small program allowing you to test-drive CLI modules using the CTK CLI module API)
• CTK_BUILD_QTDESIGNER_PLUGINS (needed by the ctkCLIPluginExplorer to create a Qt GUI from the generated .ui files at runtime)
• CTK_LIB_CommandLineModules (the CTK library providing the CLI module API)
• CTK_LIB_Widgets (used by the ctkCLIPluginExplorer to create a Qt GUI for the CLI module from the .ui file)

API Design

Overview of some central classes and their scope:

ctkCmdLineModuleDescription

C++ API for accessing the command line arguments meta-data defined in the XML description.

This class is read-only.

ctkCmdLineModuleReference

A handle to a command line module.

• Get ctkCmdLineModuleDescription class
• Convenient meta-data access (module location etc.)
• Used to get actual ctkCmdLineModuleInstance instances from ctkCmdLineModuleManager

ctkCmdLineModuleInstance

Represents an invokable command line module and its current parameter values.

Multiple instances for the same ModuleReference may exist.

• Set/Get individual parameter values or all at once
• Reset to default parameters
• Run/Abort
• Status
• Progress reporting
• Get GUI representation (QObject*)
• Get parameter value change notifications

ctkCmdLineModuleManager

Responsible for instantiating other ctkCmdLineModule* classes.

• Register factory for customizing GUI generation
• Register/Unregister modules
• Get ctkCmdLineModuleReference objects
• Create/List ModuleInstance objects

Customizability

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Boston Hackfest Work Items

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