How to build and install a plug-in
This page describes how to build new Weasis plug-ins and how they can be incorporated to the distributions, see also this page for the IDE configuration.
List of plug-ins types
- Media viewer or editor (main central panel that implements ViewerPlugin or ImageViewerPlugin and the factory implements SeriesViewerFactory)
- Toolbar associated to a viewer (implements Toolbar)
- Tool associated to a viewer (right panel that implements DockableTool)
- Data explorer (data model implements DataExplorerModel and data view implements DataExplorerView, and the factory implements DataExplorerViewFactory)
- Import data into an explorer (ex. ImportDicom and the factory implements DicomImportFactory)
- Export data into an explorer (ex. ExportDicom and the factory implements DicomExportFactory)
- DICOM editor or viewer for special modalities (DicomSpecialElementFactory and SeriesViewerFactory), see weasis-dicom-sr
- Media codec (implements Codec)
- Perferences (implements PreferencesPageFactory)
- UI aggregator. This is the application main user interface bundle. The maven artifact of this bundle must be defined in config.properties (ex. weasis.main.ui=weasis-base-ui)
See also Weasis Architecture
Build plug-ins from Maven archetype
- From the root directory of an archetype execute: mvn install
- Generate a sample project by executing the following command: mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=local
- Select the archetype:
- weasis-plugin-base-viewer-archetype (example of a toolbar and a tool for the non DICOM viewer)
- weasis-plugin-dicom-viewer-archetype (example of a toolbar and a tool for the DICOM viewer)
From Eclipse
File > New > Maven Project
Search for weasis archetype in catalog filter.
For debugging configuration
To load the plugin in the standard configuration of Weasis, add to the launcher the following VM argument:
-Dfelix.extended.config.properties="file:///your_plugin_path/conf/ext-config.properties"
Install plug-ins
For weasis-portable distribution
The file "/weasis/conf/ext-config.properties" must be adapted and plug-ins must be placed in the directory "/weasis/plugins".
Example with weasis-isowriter:
- Add in /weasis/conf/ext-config.properties:
felix.auto.start.80= \ ${weasis.codebase.url}/plugins/weasis-isowriter-2.0.3.jar
- Place the file "weasis-isowriter-2.0.3.jar" in the directory "/weasis/plugins"
For the WEB distribution
Build a new war file containing the plug-ins and the ext-config.properties file.
- Build "weasis-ext.war" with the following structure:
+--weasis-ext/ | +--WEB-INF/ | +--web.xml | +--conf/ | +--ext-config.properties | +--plugin1.jar | +--plugin2.jar
- In /weasis-ext/conf/ext-config.properties, add the plug-ins references:
felix.auto.start.80= \ ${weasis.codebase.ext.url}/plugin1.jar \ ${weasis.codebase.ext.url}/plugin2.jar
Note: Using "${weasis.codebase.ext.url}" allows to keep the base URL abstract, so moving the package to another server won’t be a problem. Otherwise absolute URLs must be used.
The default value of "${weasis.codebase.ext.url}" is "${weasis.codebase.url}-ext".
- 'weasis-ext' is the default web context when launching Weasis, using another web context requires to modify the porerty weasis.ext.url in weasis-pacs-connector configuration
or adding the code base for plugins (cdb-ext) directly in the URL: http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=9702672&cdb-ext=http://localhost:8080/plugins/weasis-ext
weasis.ext.url=${server.base.url}/weasis-newext
For debugging configuration
To load plugins in the standard configuration of Weasis, add to the launcher the following VM argument:
-Dfelix.extended.config.properties="http://server:port/weasis-ext/conf/ext-config.properties"
Example that make a package of weasis-isowriter plugin:
- Build "weasis-ext.war":
+--weasis-ext/ | +--WEB-INF/ | +--web.xml | +--conf/ | +--ext-config.properties | +--weasis-isowriter-2.0.3.jar
Build OSGI services
All the plug-in type described in the list above are OSGI services that are registered and aggregated in the GUI. Building the plug-in from the Maven archetype will configure automatically the OSGI service. For adding new OSGI services, here is the procedure:
1) Create a class implementing one of the plug-in type and add at least the annotations @Component and @Service, for instance:

@Component(immediate = false) @Service public class SamplePrefFactory implements PreferencesPageFactory { ...
For more information about annotations see the Apache Felix SCR Annotations.
2) Add in pom.xml of the plug-in the maven-scr-plugin (to generate xml file from the Java annotations) and the property for loading any xml file in maven-bundle-plugin:

<build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.felix</groupId> <artifactId>maven-scr-plugin</artifactId> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.felix</groupId> <artifactId>maven-bundle-plugin</artifactId> </plugin> ...