Documentation/4.2/Developers/Launcher

For the latest Slicer documentation, visit the read-the-docs.

The Slicer3 launcher has been ported to Qt in Slicer4.

Usage
  Slicer [options]

Options
  --launcher-help                Display help
  --launcher-verbose             Verbose mode
  --launch                       Specify the application to launch
  --launcher-detach              Launcher will NOT wait for the application to finish
  --launcher-no-splash           Hide launcher splash
  --launcher-timeout             Specify the time in second before the launcher kills the application. -1 means no timeout (default: -1)
  --launcher-generate-template   Generate an example of setting file
  --designer                     Start Qt designer using Slicer plugins
  --xterm                        Start xterm
  --gdb                          Start gdb
  --, --ignore-rest                     Ignores the rest of the labeled arguments following this flag. (default: false)
  -h, --help                            Display available command line arguments.
  --disable-python                      Disable python support. This is equivalent to build the application with Slicer_USE_PYTHONQT=OFF.
  --python-script                       Python script to execute after slicer loads.
  --python-code                         Python code to execute after slicer loads.
  --ignore-slicerrc                     Do not load the Slicer resource file (~/.slicerrc.py).
  --disable-cli-modules                 Disables the loading of Command Line Modules.
  --disable-loadable-modules            Disables the loading of Loadable Modules.
  --disable-scripted-loadable-modules   Disables the loading of Scripted Loadable Modules.
  --version                             Displays version information and exits.
  --program-path                        Displays application program path and exits.
  --home                                Displays home path and exits.
  --settings-path                       Displays settings path and exits.
  --verbose-module-discovery            Enable verbose output during module discovery process.
  --disable-settings                    Start application ignoring user settings.
  --disable-message-handlers            Start application disabling the 'terminal' message handlers.
  --disable-tooltips                    Disables toolstips in the user interface.
  --no-splash                           Disables the startup splash screen.
  --no-main-window                      Disables display of the main slicer window.  Use with --python-script for alternate interface
  --show-python-interactor              Show Python interactor at startup.

Notes

--launch <executable> [parameters]

specify the full path of the executable. Use which executable or locate executable to find the full path of an executable.

parameters is passed to the executable

Examples

.\Slicer.exe --launch "C:\Program Files (x86)\depends22_x86\depends.exe" bin\Debug\MRMLCore.dll

Starts the dependency walker with the MRMLCore.dll library.

Developers

The executable Slicer application is: Slicer-Superbuild/Slicer-build/Slicer (or Slicer.exe)

Slicer is actually a wrapper created using the CTK AppLauncher. The wrapper exists to set library and environment paths before launching the real application binary in Slicer-Superbuild/Slicer-build/bin/SlicerQT-real (or SlicerQT-real.exe)

• The wrapper is configured in Slicer4/Applications/QTGUI/CMakeLists.txt under the heading "Configure Slicer Launcher"
• The launcher configuration is put here: Slicer-build/SlicerLauncherSettings.ini

The launcher is part of the CTK effort.

Source code

The AppLauncher source code is here: https://github.com/commontk/AppLauncher

Builds

AppLauncher is built statically with Qt on Windows, Linux and MacOsX: https://github.com/commontk/AppLauncher/downloads