Node examples

1.74.x+

This guide was written for JIPipe version 1.74.0 or newer

To teach users about the settings of more complex nodes or to improve the convenience, you can annotate nodes with node examples. These will appear in a dedicated tab “Examples” on selecting a node within the pipeline editor.

The standardized example API is based around the “Node templates” functionality. To create an example, follow these steps:

1. Select a single node in the expected configuration and create a node template via Right click > Create node template
2. Provide an appropriate name and description.
3. Deselect all nodes and navigate to the Node templates tab on the right-hand panel
4. Select the newly created template and click Manage > Export selection to file
5. Save the *.json file into a directory within your extension’s resources (e.g. into /path/to/my/resources/examples)

The DefaultJavaExtension class that is the basis for Java extensions comes with a method to automatically register all examples within a specified resources folder.

Insert the following code into your extension:

@Plugin(type = JIPipeJavaExtension.class)
public class MyExtension extends JIPipeDefaultJavaExtension {

    // ...

    // If you have custom icons, thumbnails etc., create a JIPipeResourceManager instance that points towards the root directory of your resources
    // Please read the documentation of JIPipeResourceManager for more information on how to structure the resources directory 
    public static final JIPipeResourceManager RESOURCES = new JIPipeResourceManager(MyExtension.class, "resource/directory/of/my/extension");

    // ...

    @Override
    public void register(JIPipe jiPipe, Context context, JIPipeProgressInfo progressInfo) {
        // ...
        registerNodeExamplesFromResources(RESOURCES, "examples"); // Will automatically search for *.json files in the subdirectory "examples"
        // ...
    }

    // ...