Generic Component Framework

A Qt based Component Framework

Prashanth N Udupa Email: prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com

Key Rules in Software Design

Divide and Rule Establish a Constitution Similarity in Diversity Bring them together

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Survey of Component Frameworks

KDE's KParts Microsoft's COM Mozilla's XPCOM SOAP CORBA .... and today let me introduce another one :)

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Introducing GCF....

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

What is GCF?

A C++ framework for Qt applications. Based on Qt 4.4 Helps compose modules of an application as a dynamically loadable entities Provides GUI merging capabilities Provides object/functionality discovery services Provides support for inter-process-communication. Provides in-built components for common tasks Foundation for several commercial software and the open-source VTK Designer 2
Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Winner of Qt Centre Programming Contest 2007

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Gallery.....

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Gallery....

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Overview

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

How to Divide and Rule

Package functionality into GCF Components A GCF component offers

One or more widgets (subclasses of QWidget) One or more objects (subclasses of QObject) User interface elements (QAction, QMenu etc)

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

GCF's Constitution for Applications

Have a singleton component class for each component Provide a GUI-XML file for each component declaring the objects, widgets, actions etc exposed by the application and their merge hints Serve objects, widgets, actions, menus, toolbars etc from components Expose component functionality via interfaces Have one or more objects within your object implement them
Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Similarity in Diversity

IComponent base class of GCF components IComponentPlugin offers a component from a plugin CComponentFactory dictionary of all components (instantiated, uninstantiated, active and inactive) Each component's GUI XML exposes one or more objects belonging to the component Interfaces implemented by exposed objects can be searched

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

The IComponent Class

Interface Methods

Service Methods

Methods called by GCF Used for GUI creation and merging Used for handling activation/deactivation of components Reporting component attendance

Methods called by components Used for object/service/component discovery Used for establishing and releasing component dependency

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Bring them together...

CComponentLoaderComponent and CComponentGui GUI XML File

Declares objects, widgets, actions, menus, menu-strip groups All declared objects are called exposed objects. For each exposed object in the GUI XML file, a corresponding create() method is called on the IComponent. Can invoke methods, set property values, make connections etc..
Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Configuration capabilities

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Interprocess Communication

Application Access Point

Access to components and its objects are provided through this. Helps access objects in a remote application Represents a remote object

Remote Access Point

Remote Object

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Interprocess Communication

CAppAccessPoint CRemoteAppAccessPoint CRemoteObject CRemoteAppDiscovery CMessage CRemoteApp Based on TCP/IP

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Getting and Installing GCF

From www.vcreatelogic.com/oss/gcf SVN https://svn2.hosted-projects.com/vcreatelogic/GCF Supported compilers: g++, MSVC 2005, MinGW GCF designed, developed, maintained by VCreate Logic. Is distributed under GPL v2 and GPL v3 Contributions are most definitely welcome. KDCF (commercial GCF) can be purchased from KDAB. For more information write to [email protected]
Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Documentation and How to learn?

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

GCF Manual

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Whats next? - GCF's Roadmap....

Support for KPart components Support for ActiveX components Support DBUS based IPC Support for IPC via shared-memory Desktop-class component deployments Auto-Update mechanisms More built-in components

Presentation on Generic Component Framework at Akademy 2008 Prashanth N Udupa <prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com>

Thank You
Speaker: Prashanth N Udupa

Email: prashanth @ vcreatelogic . com