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AsTeRICS
Developer Manual
Developers are expected to use the ARE thread pool for executing their tasks that require a
new Thread. You will need to import the middleware services package in order to get access
to the AstericsThreadPool class.
5.9
The ARE GUI support
The ARE provides a panel area (“ARE Desktop”) where plugins can display their graphical
elements using the ARE GUI support classes. The ACS provides a dedicated canvas editor
that allows end users positioning and resizing graphical elements of the plugins. Based on
this information, the ARE displays plugins on the local device, maintaining the correct screen
position and aspect ratio of graphical elements with respect to the screen resolution of the
deployment device. (For more information about the usage of the ACS GUI editor and the
ARE GUI control panel refer to the User Manual.)
GUI composition using the ACS GUI designer (right), resulting ARE GUI (left)
In order to be recognized as GUI-plugin by ACS and ARE, the bundle descriptor of the plugin
has to be extended with a dedicated <gui> entry, which specifies the default size in a virtual
coordinate system of 10000/10000 pixels. In the deployment model, the ACS will create
position and size information according to the area defined in the ACS GUI designer.
<gui>
<width>5000</width>
<height>3000</height>
</gui>
The gui element addition to the bundle descriptor
The AsTeRICS middleware provides some services to the plugin developers in order to allow
them displaying their GUI element onto the ARE Desktop. The middleware services
encapsulate the complexity of dealing with positioning and allow displaying all GUI elements
onto the same container: the ARE Desktop.
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