Documentation/Nightly/Developers/Tutorials/BuildTestPackageDistributeExtensions

What is an extension ?

Extensions in the Extension manager.

An extension could be seen as a delivery package bundling together one or more Slicer modules. After installing an extension, the associated modules will be presented to the user as built-in ones

The Slicer community maintains a website referred to as the Slicer Extensions Catalog to support finding, downloading and installing of extensions. Access to this website is integral to Slicer and facilitated by the Extensions Manager functionality built into the distributed program.

The Catalog classifies extensions into three levels of compliance:

1. Category 1: Fully compliant Slicer Extensions: Slicer license, open source, maintained.
2. Category 2: Open source, contact exists.
3. Category 3: All other extensions (work in progress, beta, closed source etc).

To publish extensions, developers should consider reading the following pages:

• Bundle module(s) into a Slicer extension
• Build, test, package and distribute extensions

Prerequisites

Create an extension using the Wizard

• Create an extension using the Wizard

Upload an extension in the experimental folder

• Upload an extension in the experimental folder

Contributing a new extension

Extensions build against Slicer trunk

The following instruction describes how to contribute extension description file for an extension being built against slicer trunk.

1. Fork the ExtensionsIndex: http://github.com/Slicer/ExtensionsIndex. Click here for forking instructions.

2. Clone your fork, then create a topic named add-<ExtensionName>

git clone git@github.com:USER/ExtensionsIndex SlicerExtensionsIndex
cd SlicerExtensionsIndex
git checkout -b add-YourExtensionName

3. Commit your description file. Commit title should be Add YourExtensionName extension and the content should provide details about the extension.

4. Push the topic to your fork

git push origin 

5. On your github fork, click on "Pull Request". Slicer folks will be automatically notified.

6. That's it !

• See instructions on github
• Consider also reading Extension description file format

Extensions build against Slicer 4.10

• Follow instruction reported in section Requesting an extension version update / Extensions_build_against_Slicer_4.10 and set the title of the commit to be add-<ExtensionName>.

Requesting an extension update

On your local fork, the idea is to create the following topic branches:

• update-<YourExtensionName> based of master integration branch.
• update-<YourExtensionName>-4.2 based of 4.2 integration branch.

Extensions build against Slicer trunk

The following instruction describes how to contribute extension description file updates for an extension being built against slicer trunk.

1. Update the master branch of both your local clone and your online ExtensionsIndex fork

git remote add upstream git://github.com/Slicer/ExtensionsIndex   # Add reference to the authoritative ExtensionsIndex
git fetch upstream                                                # Fetch change of the authoritative ExtensionsIndex
git checkout master                                               # Checkout master
git reset --hard upstream/master                                  # Reset your local master branch using the authoritative master 
git push origin master                                            # Update the master branch of your online fork

2. If needed, create branch named update-YourExtensionName

git checkout -b update-YourExtensionName                          # Create branch update-YourExtensionName

3. Regenerate the YourExtensionName.s4ext file by configuring your extension with CMake

• See https://github.com/Slicer/ExtensionsIndex#build-your-own-set-of-extensions-against-slicer-trunk-build-tree
• If the svn server needs a username and a password, edit the newly generated YourExtensionName.s4ext file to add this information

4. Commit the YourExtensionName.s4ext file to your cloned ExtensionIndex repository (provide a meaningful commit comment)

5. Push modifications to your ExtensionIndex fork on github

git push origin update-YourExtensionName                         # Publish the updated branch on your fork

6. Create a pull request:

• Visiting your fork on http://github.com/USER/ExtensionsIndex and, if available, clicking on the Pull request link as explained here.

or

• Using a link similar to the following: https://github.com/USER/ExtensionsIndex/pull/new/update-YourExtensionName

Note: If you are using github for hosting your extension source code, make sure to associated a Compare View link. This is very helpful to summarize the changes.

You can build the compare view URL manually with the following format: 

https://github.com/USER/REPO/compare/[USER:]GIT-REF…[USER:]GIT-REF

USER is your GitHub username, REPO is your GitHub repository, and GIT-REF can be a tag, branch, or commit SHA1. 

Source: http://jbuckley.ca/2011/09/githubs-compare-view/

Extensions build against Slicer 4.10

The following instruction describes how to contribute extension description file updates for an extension being built against slicer trunk.

1. Update the 4.10 branch of both your local clone and your online ExtensionsIndex fork

git remote add upstream git://github.com/Slicer/ExtensionsIndex   # Add reference to the authoritative ExtensionsIndex
git fetch upstream                                                # Fetch change of the authoritative ExtensionsIndex
git checkout 4.2                                                  # Checkout 4.2
git reset --hard upstream/4.2                                     # Reset your local 4.2 branch using the authoritative 4.2
git push origin 4.2                                               # Update the 4.2 branch of your online fork

2. If needed, create branch named update-YourExtensionName-4.2

git checkout -b update-YourExtensionName-4.2                      # Create branch update-YourExtensionName-4.2




3. Regenerate the YourExtensionName.s4ext file by configuring your extension with CMake

• See https://github.com/Slicer/ExtensionsIndex#build-your-own-set-of-extensions-against-slicer-trunk-build-tree.
• If the svn server needs a username and a password, edit the newly generated YourExtensionName.s4ext file to add this information.

4. Commit the YourExtensionName.s4ext file to your cloned ExtensionIndex repository providing a meaningful commit comment.

5. Push modifications to your ExtensionIndex fork on github

git push origin update-YourExtensionName-4.2                     # Publish the updated branch on your fork

6. Create a pull request:

• Visiting your fork on http://github.com/USER/ExtensionsIndex and, if available, clicking on the Pull request link as explained here.

or

• Using a link similar to the following: https://github.com/USER/ExtensionsIndex/pull/new/update-YourExtensionName-4.2

Note: If you are using github for hosting your extension source code, make sure to associated a Compare View link. This is very helpful to summarize the changes.

You can build the compare view URL manually with the following format: 

https://github.com/USER/REPO/compare/[USER:]GIT-REF…[USER:]GIT-REF

USER is your GitHub username, REPO is your GitHub repository, and GIT-REF can be a tag, branch, or commit SHA1. 

Source: http://jbuckley.ca/2011/09/githubs-compare-view/

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