Temerity: Tutorials - Configuring Plugin Menus

Tutorial: Configuring Plugin Menus

As you have seen in the previous tutorial, Creating a Default Toolset, Pipeline uses Toolsets to determine the software environment under which programs launched by Pipeline are run. Pipeline uses several types of plugins to determine the command-line options and other details of how these programs are executed. Plugins for many of the industry standard tools are provided with Pipeline and additional plugins can be added to these standard plugins either by writing new plugins locally or from third-party vendors. Since each facility will make different choices about the software and plugins they use on a given project, Pipeline allows administrators to configure the plugins exposed to users for each Toolset.

Associating Plugins with Packages

For each Toolset Package, you first need to specify which of the Editor, Comparator, Action, Tool and Archiver plugins are supported by the Package. This is done from the Manage Toolsets dialog using the "Package Plugins" menu item for the selected Package.

For example you can add the "Emacs" Editor plugin to the "Basic" Unix Package by selecting the plugin in the "All Editor Plugins" area and pressing the left arrow button in the center of the dialog. Conversely, you can remove support for the "Emacs" plugin from the Package by selecting it in the "Included Plugins" area and pressing the right arrow button.

For the "Basic" package, you probably want to add all of the Linux and GIMP related plugins since the Package adds the locations of these programs to the PATH environmental variable.

You'll also want to add all of the Archiver plugins since these plugins also rely on programs reachable from the PATH set by the "Basic" Package such as cdrecord(1), tar(1) and cpio(1).

Keep in mind that the plugins don't actually specify the locations of the software they run, but rely on the environment to add them to the executable path. This is an important detail of how Pipeline plugins and Packages interact. It makes is possible for several versions of a particular program to be installed at the same time. Each version of the program can have a different Package which sets the needed environment (such as the PATH) to run each version. However, both versions of the program could be launched using the same Editor plugin but under different Toolset environments specified by the Packages associated with each program version.

Sometimes, even the plugin needs to be modified in order to launch newer versions of a particular program due to changes in command-line options or program names. Plugins can also be improved over time to add new features or address previous limitations. For both of these reasons, plugins also have versions. When you choose the plugins to associated with a Package, you may sometimes be able to choose among several version of the plugin or even associate more than one version of a plugin with the Package. This is especially true of plugins associated with proprietary software developed in-house at a facility which may be release much more frequently than commercial software.

Toolset Plugin Menu Layouts

Now that you have specified the plugins supported by one or more Toolset Packages, you can use these supported plugins in the plugin menus of Toolsets built from these Packages. The plugin menus for a Toolset can include any of the plugins supported by the Packages which make up a Toolset. The layout and organization of these plugin menus are specified by the Toolset Plugin Menus dialog using the "Plugin Menus" menu item for the selected Toolset.

The tabs at the top of the Toolset Plugin Menus dialog select among the menus for each of the types of plugins. The area on the right lists the plugin versions supported by the Packages of the Toolset. The area on the left contains the names and layout of the plugin menus for the Toolset. You can create new menus and menu items using the "New Menu/Item" menu item.

For example, you could create a top level item called "GIMP" which uses "Gimp" plugin. First you will need to create the "GIMP" item using "New Menu/Item". Then select both this newly created item in the left area, select the "v2.0.0" version under the "Gimp" plugin in the right area and press the left arrow button.

You could go on to create all of the plugin menus this way one at a time. Alternatively, you can can create the entire menu at one time using a saved default menu layout be pressing the "Default" button at the bottom of the dialog. You can also replace the default menu layout with the current menu layout by pressing the "Save Default" button. For instance, try replacing the Editor plugin menu layout with the default menu layout.

Pipeline ships with default menus for each plugin type which use all of the plugins available. You'll notice that the default Editor menu includes some plugins which are not listed in the available plugins area on the right of the dialog since you have not added these plugins to any of the Packages which make up the Toolset. These menu items are currently disabled, indicated by the grey color. They will be included in the menus used by artists for this Toolset, but they cannot be selected for use. You can add these disable plugins to the appropriate Packages to enable them, remove the disabled items from the menus or leave them as is.

For the example "ProjectX" Toolset, you will want to repeat the process of adding plugins related to Maya to the "Maya-6.5" Package. You'll also want to creating Comparator, Action, Tool and Archiver plugin menus for the "ProjectX" Toolset using the same methods used to create the Editor plugin menu.

Pipeline allows a great deal of flexibility in customizing Packages, Toolsets and their associated plugins to meet the unique needs of each facility. These tutorials where designed to give you a taste of what is possible. In most cases, consultants from Temerity will be working closely with system administrators and technical leads to setup Pipeline at your facility, but these tutorials should give you an overview of the steps involved in the setup process.