View source for Slicer3:Loadable Modules:Status 2009-01-20

Use this page to describe how this feature works as of January 2009.

== Overview ==

* User experience
**	Run slicer
**	View->Module Search
***	Wizard searches http://ext.slicer.org/ext/...
**** TODO: <slicerVersion>/<slicerBuildDate>/<build>/<moduleName>/<moduleName>-<moduleBuildDate>-<build>.zip
***	Archived of precompiled shared libraries (platform specific)
**	Select modules
*** TODO: wizard checks for newer versions of existing modules (later: give user option of always checking during slicer boot)
*** TODO: wizard grabs .s3ext file (uploaded by the extend script)
*** TODO: add Category, Description, Homepage to .s3ext file
*** TODO: make home page hot linked
*** TODO: support python and tcl scripted modules and make examples in nitrc
*** TODO: make dependencies in .s3ext
*** TODO: make 'logic-only' modules (essentially just a shared library of classes)
**	Modules are downloaded and unpacked into user-specific Slicer install cache directory
**	Restart Slicer
**	Can remove modules

* Developer
**	make slicer build tree locally
**	create module from a template (GUI, Logic, MRML) see NITRC example modules
**	test locally on their platform
**	create project in NITRC (source forge)
**	 submit module to a “build farm”
***	Register svn with slicer.org (Kitware, TBD)
**	Nightly build gets uploaded to slicer.org 

* Phase 1:  [[Slicer3:Loadable_Modules:Phase1|Slicer internals]]
**	runtime module discovery
**	module template
**	like CommandLineModuleFactory

* Phase 2: web development, deployment
**	prototype on wiki
**	versions, download,
**	upload

== References ==

* [http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Plug-in-architecture/plugin_architecture.html Eclipse module architecture]
* [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1 Mozilla extensions for Firefox]