This project is archived, which means that it's in read-only state; you can download and use this code, but please be aware that it may be buggy and may also contain security vulnerabilities. If you're interested in restoring development activities on this project, please email help@finos.org
The Plexus Interop project aims to define an open standard for desktop application interoperability and provides reference implementation of this standard. It formalizes connections between applications within a single user session on client desktop through a central broker.
The main goal is to enable development of extensible workflows connecting independent apps developed by different organizations in different technologies (.NET, Web, Java, Python, etc.) by passing relevant context (structured data objects) between those apps.
Although the industry is moving towards containerized desktop applications, Plexus Interop recognizes that much of the application landscape is not yet tied to containers and is architecturally agnostic of container implementation. Separating interoperability from the container provides notable advantages: different containers can be leveraged in the same workflow, and launched applications residing outside of containers can participate in interop activities.
Technically speaking, Plexus Interop is a metadata-centric language-agnostic desktop app-to-app interoperability framework with an extensible model for launching new instances of desktop applications on demand. Its extensibility is based on open standards which are essential parts of the project. The architecture is based around central broker providing hub-and-spoke connectivity between apps and brokering strongly-typed RPC-style calls between them. The broker has a connection to an Application Lifecycle Manager (or Launcher) which is capable of creating new instances of apps based on the their runtime-metadata (e.g. container type, launch command, command line parameters) defined in a registry.
Plexus Interop repository consist of the following main sections:
Build and samples are currently tested on Windows environments; building and running on Linux/OSX environments is still experimental (see below).
Make sure that Java SDK is installed and JAVA_HOME variable is set.
All Plexus Interop components can be built using Gradle tool using the following single command:
./gradlew build --console plain
Build produces artifacts into folder "bin"; the first run can take 10 minutes or more, depending on your Internet connection speed.
Build configuration should work fine on standard setup, with access to Internet. However it is quite often to have Dev setup behind corporate proxy. To run build successfully you'll need to adjust few configuration items shown below:
To adjust Gradle Proxy settings please update following lines in %USERPROFILE%\.gradle\gradle.properties
, using your Corporate Proxy's host and port instead of example values:
systemProp.proxySet="true"
systemProp.http.proxyHost=proxy.host.acme.com
systemProp.http.proxyPort=8080
systemProp.https.proxyHost=proxy.host.acme.com
systemProp.https.proxyPort=8080
systemProp.http.nonProxyHosts=*.acme.com|localhost
Please adjust following Environment variables:
Name | Value/Example | Description |
---|---|---|
HTTP_PROXY |
http://userproxy.acme.com:8080 |
Your corporate proxy host:port. |
HTTPS_PROXY |
http://userproxy.acme.com:8080 |
Your corporate proxy host:port. |
NO_PROXY |
127.0.0.1,localhost,.acme.com |
List of Intranet hosts to exclude from accessing through proxy. |
ELECTRON_MIRROR |
https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/ |
Host to download Electron binaries from, if different from default Github releases site. |
SASS_BINARY_SITE |
https://github.com/sass/node-sass/releases/ |
Host to download Saas binaries from, if different from default Github releases site. |
There are also few recommended/optional variables to improve your build/development experience:
Name | Value/Example | Description |
---|---|---|
PLEXUS_BUILD_SKIP_DOTNET_TESTS |
true |
Disable integration tests for .Net components to decrease build time. |
PLEXUS_BUILD_SKIP_WEB_TESTS |
true |
Disable integration tests for Javascript components to decrease build time. |
GRADLE_USER_HOME |
C:\Home\Gradle |
Gradle stores cached packages in %USERPROFILE%\.gradle by default, often pointing to Roaming Profile. So it worth to use some local folder instead. Please also copy existing Gradle settings to new folder. |
NUGET_PACKAGES |
C:\Home\NuGetGlobalPackages |
Nuget stores cached binaries in %USERPROFILE%\.nuget by default, often pointing to Roaming Profile. So it worth to use some local folder instead. |
NPM_REGISTRY_INSTALL |
https://npm.registry.acme.com |
Can be used to replace default https://registry.npmjs.org with another registry/mirror to download NPM dependencies from. |
If running on OSX, please update desktop/src/Plexus.Interop.sln
file and remove any code block that starts with ProjectSection(ProjectDependencies)
and ends with EndSection
; if you have already executed the gradlew
build once, you must cleanup your local checkout using git clean -d -f -X
(add -n
for a dry run).
After successful build samples binaries will be located in bin
directory.
Run .Net to Web interop example on Windows:
bin/win-x86/samples/greeting
(or bin/osx-x64/samples/greeting
for OSX/Linux)LaunchBroker.cmd
(or LaunchBroker.sh
for OSX/Linux)Launch (from a different terminal) Greeting Client – LaunchGreetingClient.cmd
To check out docs, visit https://plexus.finos.org.
Documentation project is located in folder 'docs'. We build documentation using AsciiDoc.
To render diagrams during the build you need to have graphviz installed on the machine.
Invoke the following command to run the documentation build:
gradlew -p docs --console plain
After successful build documentation is available via:
bin/docs/html5/index.html
git checkout -b feature/fooBar
)git commit -am 'Add some fooBar'
)git push origin feature/fooBar
)NOTE: Commits and pull requests to FINOS repositories will only be accepted from those contributors with an active, executed Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA) with FINOS OR who are covered under an existing and active Corporate Contribution License Agreement (CCLA) executed with FINOS. Commits from individuals not covered under an ICLA or CCLA will be flagged and blocked by the FINOS Clabot tool. Please note that some CCLAs require individuals/employees to be explicitly named on the CCLA.
Need an ICLA? Unsure if you are covered under an existing CCLA? Email help@finos.org
Problem: Gradle fails to download dependencies, how to setup proxy configuration?
Solution: Pass proxy settings into Gradle via command-line parameters - e.g. gradlew.bat -Dhttp.proxyHost=myproxy.com -Dhttp.proxyPort=8888 -Dhttps.proxyHost=myproxy.com -D https.proxyPort=4444 ...
As described above, public documentation is served using GitHub Pages and stored in gh-pages
branch. So to update it, you simply need to push updated documentation to this branch. gh-pages
branch structure is different from master
, so manual update requires few steps:
plexus-interop
folderplexus-interop-docs
folder, checkout gh-pages
branch theregit checkout -b feature/gh-pages-update
gradlew build -p docs --console plain
plexus-interop/docs
to plexus-interop-docs/docs
plexus-interop/bin/html5
to plexus-interop-docs
(project root)plexus-interop-docs
, push the changes and raise PR against gh-pages
branchThe code in this repository is distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
Copyright 2017-2019 Plexus Interop Deutsche Bank AG