Passing information to a macro from a plugin

[simon andrews (BI)]

I've written a plugin which calculates a value from an image.  Someone now wants to use this plugin from within a macro.

I can configure the plugin from the macro by using Macro.getOptions() and parsing the string they pass in, but what I need now is a way to return a value (or preferably values) from the plugin and send it back to the calling macro so it can be used elsewhere in the macro.

I'm sure there must be an easy way to do this, but I've not found it in the documentation.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks

Simon.

[Gabriel Landini]

On Wednesday 02 Jun 2010  11:12:35 you wrote:
> I can configure the plugin from the macro by using Macro.getOptions() and
> parsing the string they pass in, but what I need now is a way to return a
> value (or preferably values) from the plugin and send it back to the
> calling macro so it can be used elsewhere in the macro.

You should read the mailing list archives. I asked the same question not long
ago and there are several ways to do this.
I found this example to be enough to do what I needed:
http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/plugins/imp-props.html

G

[Michael Schmid]

Hi Simon,

one possibilty is a static method in your plugin that returns a value  
or string (possibly in dependence of a parameter that serves as key  
which value to return). You can use the call("myPlugin.staticmethod",  
"key")) macro function to get it.

You can also write the values (if numeric) to the ResultsTable or (if  
a String or converted to a String) to the properties (info) of the  
image - the latter would have the advantage that it is multithreading-
safe.

Michael
________________________________________________________________

On 2 Jun 2010, at 11:39, simon andrews (BI) wrote:

> I've written a plugin which calculates a value from an image.  
> Someone now wants to use this plugin from within a macro.
>
> I can configure the plugin from the macro by using Macro.getOptions
> () and parsing the string they pass in, but what I need now is a  
> way to return a value (or preferably values) from the plugin and  
> send it back to the calling macro so it can be used elsewhere in  
> the macro.
>
> I'm sure there must be an easy way to do this, but I've not found  
> it in the documentation.
>
> Can anyone enlighten me?
>
> Thanks
>
> Simon.

[Joachim Wesner]

Hi Simon,

you could exchange data with the macro via the "preferences" mechanism.
Alternative, I use a technique that attaches "properties" to the window
that the plugin operated on.
You also add at static function to your plugin where it can return the
result of a previous call (as used in my tifftags plugin)

See:

http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/macros/CallJavaDemo.txt

http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/developer/api/ij/Prefs.html

http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/plugins/imp-props.html

http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/plugins/tiff-tags.html


Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards

Joachim Wesner



                                                                           
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I've written a plugin which calculates a value from an image.  Someone now
wants to use this plugin from within a macro.

I can configure the plugin from the macro by using Macro.getOptions() and
parsing the string they pass in, but what I need now is a way to return a
value (or preferably values) from the plugin and send it back to the
calling macro so it can be used elsewhere in the macro.

I'm sure there must be an easy way to do this, but I've not found it in the
documentation.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks

Simon.


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[simon andrews (BI)]

> On 2 Jun 2010, at 11:39, simon andrews (BI) wrote:
>
>> I've written a plugin which calculates a value from an image.  
>> Someone now wants to use this plugin from within a macro.
>>
>> I can configure the plugin from the macro by using Macro.getOptions
>> () and parsing the string they pass in, but what I need now is a  
>> way to return a value (or preferably values) from the plugin and  
>> send it back to the calling macro so it can be used elsewhere in  
>> the macro.

On 2 Jun 2010, at 11:23, Michael Schmid wrote:

> You can also write the values (if numeric) to the ResultsTable or (if  
> a String or converted to a String) to the properties (info) of the  
> image - the latter would have the advantage that it is multithreading-
> safe.

Thanks  - using the image properties to store and access the data worked out just fine.

Simon.