View source for AnyWave:DeveloperCorner

=Welcome=
This part of the Wiki is dedicated to developers who would like to implement their own plug-ins for AnyWave.<br />
AnyWave is written using the Qt Framework and the Qt plugin mechanism, so a good knowledge of the Qt Framework is required.

=The SDK=
If you have installed AnyWave on your system, you will find all the required files in the installation folder.<br />
==Linux==
Build from sources following the instructions on our [https://gitlab.thevirtualbrain.org/anywave Gitlab].<br />
Considering the default installation path, the requires folders to build a plugin are:<br />
* '''/usr/local/AnyWave/include'''
* '''/usr/local/AnyWave/lib'''
==Mac OS==
The required folders to build a plugin are:<br />
* '''/Applications/AnyWave.app/Contents/include'''
* '''/Applications/AnyWave.app/Contents/dylibs'''

==Windows==
The required folders to build a plugin are:<br />
* '''AnyWave\include'''
* '''AnyWave\lib'''

=Basic requirements to build a plugin=
We strongly recommend QtCreator as the tool to use which is available along with the Qt open source package you will need to build a plugin. <br/>
Download Qt and Qt Creator here: [https://www.qt.io/download Get Qt and Qt Creator] <br/>
'''Note about Windows:'''<br/>
The Windows version of AnyWave is built with Visual Studio 2017 though, so, if you plan to build a plugin for Windows, consider using Visual Studio along with the Qt VS Addin.<br/>
Technically speaking you can build a plugin with QtCreator using another compiler like '''gcc''' or '''clang'''.<br/>
You will need to put the runtime DLL files of the chosen compiler into the AnyWave folder after you copied the plugin into the Plugins subdirectory.

==Prepare a project==
Every Qt project starts with a .pro file which is the format used by qmake, the tool for building Qt projects.<br/>
Building an AnyWave plugin requires that the paths to AnyWave headers and libraries must be set.<br/>
A good practice is to set an environment variable called '''AW_ROOT''' that points to the root folder of your AnyWave installation.<br />
Example:<br/>
<syntaxhighlight lang="text">
CONFIG += release warn_off c++11 plugin
ROOT=$$(AW_ROOT)
# on Mac OS the required folders are located inside the application bundle.
macx{
ROOT = $$(AW_ROOT)/Contents
}
INCLUDEPATH += $$ROOT/include
LIBS += -L$$ROOT/lib
DESTDIR = $$ROOT/Plugins

# Mac OS application has a separated folder for Plugins.
macx {
DESTDIR = $$ROOT/../../Anywave_Plugins
# shared libs on Mac are located in the application bundle.
LIBS += -F/Library/Frameworks -L$$ROOT/dylibs
}
</syntaxhighlight>
You may use this file as .pri that you could include in every project you plan to develop:<br/>
[http://meg.univ-amu.fr/AnyWave/sdk/plugins.pri Get plugins.pri file]

=Build a reader plugin=
As a tutorial, we are going to develop here a reader plugin called "My Reader".<br/>
Each Qt project starts with a .pro file which qmake use to compile and link a Qt project.<br/>
A Reader plugin is a Qt shared library that should be placed in the Plugins directory of AnyWave.<br/>
==Step 1: Prepare the folder==
Let's create a folder in which we will put the files required to build our plugin:<br/>
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
mkdir MyReader && cd MyReader
</syntaxhighlight>

==Step 2==
Now we can create the .pro file for our project:<br>
<syntaxhighlight lang="text">
# We assume that the plugins.pri file is also in our plugin directory.
include(plugins.pri)
# The name of our plugin
TARGET=MyReader
# Our project must be a library
TEMPLATE = lib
# Just to avoid unwanted libs, Qt GUI is not usefull for a reader plugin (no widgets/no graphics items).
QT -= gui

# We must link with some AnyWave libs
#  AwRW is the AnyWave ReadWrite lib.
unix{
LIBS += -lAwRW  
}
win32{
LIBS += AwReadWriteLib.lib
}

HEADERS += MyReader.h
SOURCES += MyReader.cpp
</syntaxhighlight>

==Step 3==

=Build a signal processing plug-in=
==[[AnyWave:WriteMatlabScripted|How to write a MATLAB plug-in]]==
===[[AnyWave:MATLAB_API|MATLAB API]]===

==[[AnyWave:WritePythonScripted|How to write a Python Scripted plug-in]]==