Build Plug-ins

How to build and install a plug-in

This page describes how to build new Weasis plug-ins and how they can be incorporated into the distributions, see also this page for the IDE configuration.

List of plug-ins types

• Media viewer or editor (main central panel that implements ViewerPlugin or ImageViewerPlugin and the factory implements SeriesViewerFactory)
• Toolbar associated with a viewer (implements Toolbar)
• Tool associated with a viewer (right panel that implements DockableTool)
• Data Explorer (data model implements DataExplorerModel and data view implements DataExplorerView, and the factory implements DataExplorerViewFactory)
• Import data into an explorer (ex. ImportDicom and the factory implements DicomImportFactory)
• Export data into an explorer (ex. ExportDicom and the factory implements DicomExportFactory)
• DICOM editor or viewer for special modalities (DicomSpecialElementFactory and SeriesViewerFactory), see weasis-dicom-sr
• Media codec (implements Codec)
• Preferences (implements PreferencesPageFactory)
• UI aggregator. This is the application main user interface bundle. The maven artifact of this bundle must be defined in config.properties (ex. weasis.main.ui=weasis-base-ui)

Build plug-ins from Maven archetype

1. From the folder Weasis/archetype execute: mvn install
2. Generate a sample project by executing the following command: mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=local
3. Select the archetype:
   • weasis-plugin-base-viewer-archetype (example of a toolbar and a tool for the non DICOM viewer)
   • weasis-plugin-dicom-viewer-archetype (example of a toolbar and a tool for the DICOM viewer)

Install plug-ins

For the installed distribution

The file “app/conf/ext-config.properties” must be adapted and plug-ins must be placed in the directory “app/plugins”.

Example with weasis-isowriter:

• Add in app/conf/ext-config.properties:

  felix.auto.start.85=${weasis.codebase.url}/plugins/weasis-isowriter-2.6.1.jar

  Tip

  If you want to use another directory for a plugin on your computer, you should use one of the following properties:
  On Windows: felix.auto.start.85=file:///C:/path/to/weasis-isowriter-2.6.1.jar
  On linux: felix.auto.start.85=file:///home/Username/path/to/weasis-isowriter-2.6.1.jar
  On macOS: felix.auto.start.85=file:///Users/Username/path/to/weasis-isowriter-2.6.1.jar

  Tip

  For not modifying the current ext-config.properties create a new file and add to the launcher the following VM argument: -Dfelix.extended.config.properties="file:///your_plugin_path/myplugin-config.properties"

• Place the file “weasis-isowriter-2.6.1.jar” in the directory “/weasis/plugins”

For the WEB distribution

Build a new war file containing the plug-ins and the ext-config.properties file.

• Build “weasis-ext.war” with the following structure:

      weasis-ext/
      ├── conf/
      │   ├── ext-config.properties
      ├── WEB-INF/
      │   ├── web.xml
      ├── plugin1.jar
      └── plugin2.jar

• In /weasis-ext/conf/ext-config.properties, add the plug-ins references:

  felix.auto.start.85= \
   ${weasis.codebase.ext.url}/plugin1.jar \
   ${weasis.codebase.ext.url}/plugin2.jar

  Note

  Using ${weasis.codebase.ext.url} allows you to keep the base URL abstract, so moving the package to another server won’t be a problem. Otherwise absolute URLs must be used. The default value of ${weasis.codebase.ext.url} is ${weasis.codebase.url}-ext.

• weasis-ext is the default web context when launching Weasis, using another web context requires modifying the property weasis.ext.url, it can be done by:

  weasis.ext.url=${server.base.url}/weasis-newext

• Changing the property in weasis-pacs-connector configuration.

  Note

  It is also possible to add the code base for plugins (cdb-ext) directly in the URL:

  http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=9702672&cdb-ext=http://localhost:8080/plugins/weasis-ext

An example that makes a package of weasis-isowriter plugin:

• Build “weasis-ext.war”:

      weasis-ext/
      ├── conf/
      │   ├── ext-config.properties
      ├── WEB-INF/
      │   ├── web.xml
      └── weasis-isowriter-2.0.3.jar

Build OSGi services

All the plug-in type described in the list above are OSGi services that are registered and aggregated in the GUI. Building the plug-in from the Maven archetype will configure the OSGi service automatically. For adding new OSGi services, here is the procedure:

1. Create a class implementing one of the plug-in types and add at least the annotations @Component and @Service, for instance:

   @Component(immediate = false)
   @Service
   public class SamplePrefFactory implements PreferencesPageFactory {
     ...
   }

   Tip

   For more information about annotations see the Apache Felix SCR Annotations.

2. Add in pom.xml of the plug-in the maven-scr-plugin (to generate XML file from the Java annotations) and the property for loading any XML file in maven-bundle-plugin:

       <build>
       <plugins>
        <plugin>
           <groupId>org.apache.felix</groupId>
           <artifactId>maven-scr-plugin</artifactId>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
           <groupId>org.apache.felix</groupId>
           <artifactId>maven-bundle-plugin</artifactId>
        </plugin>
       ...