libs/libkipi/libkipi
This page will tell you both how to develop a new plugin for KIPI, and how to add KIPI support to a new application (referred to as host application).This documentation has been writen by Gilles Caulier and has been updated and improved by Victor Dodon.
General information about libkipi 2.0.0
Starting with 2.0.0 version of libkipi shared library, Plugin class inherits KXMLGUIClient class. This means that if your application uses KDE-XML GUI, you can add plugin actions to the toolbar(if you add plugins to the guiFactory of you KXMLGuiWindow). For more documentation about KDE-XML GUI you can look here.
Developing a new KIPI plugin
The easiest way to start a new plugin, is to copy the KXMLHelloWorld plugin, which you may find in libkipi project from KDE git repository. Please also read this tutorial which tells in general about developing a plugin structure for an application, but it also gives some background information on how plugins are loaded, and especially on the macros involved. The tutorial has been written by one of the KIPI authors, so it matches fairly good the model of KIPI.
General things to do to implement a KIPI plugin
Here is a list of things to do.
- Create a class that inherits KIPI::Plugin. In the constructor you must create instances of KAction for your application. The topmost actions should be given to the Plugin super class using KIPI::Plugin::addAction().
-
As described in the tutorial here, you must call KDE macros
K_PLUGIN_FACTORY
andK_EXPORT_PLUGIN
. - You also need to create a desktop file, as described here
- You must write a rc file describing the gui of your plugin. For an example look at the rc file of the KXMLHelloWorld plugin.
Retrieving information from the KIPI host application
The above was the required step to build the plugin. The following will tell you about the functions with which you communicate with the host application.
The origin of all your communication with the host application is KIPI::Interface. You obtain a pointer to this by casting the parent pointer given to your plugin during construction, or, beginning with libkipi 2.0.0, by calling interface() method from KIPI::Plugin class.
Selection of images can be obtained using KIPI::Interface::currentSelection(), KIPI::Interface::currentAlbum() and KIPI::Interface::allAlbums(). These methods uses KIPI::ImageCollection to wrap a selection of images.
Finally to obtain information about individual images, call KIPI::Interface::info(), which returns a KIPI::ImageInfo, with the information. Note that Kipi-plugins provide a dedicated wrapper around KIPI::ImageInfo to simplify item attribute management with host application. See here for details.
When developing plugins, you should pay special attention to the fact the different host applications may have different feature sets they support. Information about what the host application support can be obtained from KIPI::Interface::hasFeature(). See also extra settings that can be shared by KIPI host application. Kipi-plugins provide a dedicated wrapper around KIPI::Interface to simplify host settings management. See KPHostSettings and KPMetaSettings for details.
Utilities for Plugins
KIPI has a number of utilities useful when developing plugins:
- use KIPI::ImageCollectionSelector to ask the user for a collection.
- use KIPI::UploadWidget when the user should specify a directory to write images into.
- KIPI::Interface::thumbnail() helps you load thumbnails of images from KIPI host thumbnail manager.
- KIPI::Interface::progress*() helps you dispatch progress information to KIPI host progress manager.
- kipicmd command line program helps you to test your plugin without to have a KIPI host application available. It emulates a simplified KIPI interface and can run plugin as stand-alone application. Look kipicmd command line documentation for details.
- Beginning with libkipi 2.0.0 you have a simple gui program, kxmlkipicmd, which emulates a simplified KIPI interface with a menubar and a toolbar. This way you can test the gui of your plugin.
Adding KIPI support to a new host application.
To add KIPI support to your application you must inherit KIPI::Interface, and give an instance of this class to KIPI::PluginLoader. See KIPI::PluginLoader for details on loading plugins.
To be able to create an instance of your subclass of KIPI::Interface, you must of course implement all the pure virtual method of the super class, among others this requires you to create and return instances of KIPI::ImageCollection and KIPI::ImageInfo. The only way you can do so are by giving the classes a pointer to a subclass of KIPI::ImageCollectionShared and KIPI::ImageInfoShared. These sub classes are also your responsibility to implement.
The reason why things are that complicated, are to solve the problem of ownership of pointers to the classes in question. The KIPI::ImageCollectionShared pointer you give to KIPI::ImageCollection constructor will be the owned by the ImageCollection instance.
digiKam has a full implemented KIPI interface. Look here for details.
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