ADTF3 Guides - ADTF Configuration Editor

The CE can also be executed as a Runtime User (Runtime License), but only in Read-Only Mode to view the sessions, graphs, systems and their properties without edit functionality (this is still part of the Developer License). So these are the limitations, other functions like launching tools or sessions or navigate from Home will work the same.

Touch within the CE is not supported and deactivated.

If you are facing any issues regarding scaling and monitor dpi awerness, especially when using the CE on several monitors with different scaling and resolution (especially 4K), you can override the OS scaling under Tools > Options... > General.

If you are facing any issues regarding weird windows, UI behavior or missing widgets, please call the CE from command line with argument --reset to set back to delivery state. The same can occur if your adtf_configuration_editor.cesettings has been damaged.

Available commands

Although the CE is a GUI application it still has some command line arguments.
Type: adtf_configuration_editor.exe --help into a console to get the list of the supported command line arguments:

            
ADTF Configuration Editor

adtf_configuration_editor

Usage:
        adtf_configuration_editor [--help] [--no-splash] [--debug-panel] [--enable-logging]
                                  [--reset] [--profiler] [--profiler-dump-file <filename>]
                                  [--settings <cesettingsfile>] [--environment
                                  <adtfenvironmentfile>] [--project <project>] [<adtfproject>]

Options:
        --help, -h  Print the usage info and quit.
        --no-splash Do not show splash window.
        --debug-panel
                    Enable debug window.

        --enable-logging
                    Redirect message buffer of CE to CE Log View (including JS/QML).

        --reset, -r Delete all user specific entries.
        --profiler  Start easy profiler thread and open port.
        --profiler-dump-file <filename>
                    Enables profiling right from the start. When ADTF shuts down, profiling data
                    will be dumped to the given file.

        --settings <cesettingsfile>
                    Path to a .cesettings file that should be used instead of the default one (in
                    your home directory).

        --environment <adtfenvironmentfile>
                    Specify an ADTF environment file that should be loaded. This is also stored in
                    the used .cesettings file.

        --project <project>
                    Path to the .adtfproject file. Note: Explicit option --project does not work in
                    combination with using <adtfproject> as argument.

        <adtfproject>
                    Path to the .adtfproject file.

Files you need to know

Creating a new project with the CE results in a new folder named after the project, containing:

A project file *.adtfproject which defines

Names and paths to all session files (*.adtfsession)
Names and paths to all graph files (*.adtfgraph)
Names and paths to all system files (*.adtfsystem)

A new folder named adtfsessions

New session files are created here. These files have the suffix *.adtfsession and define the path to the selected

system file
system properties file
graph file
graph properties file

The session is what the ADTF Launcher can run. It defines:

The system file for providing the features, required platform dependencies, environment variables to use and plugins to load
The graph file for data receiving/sending/processing, filtering, calculation, visualisation, etc.

A new folder named adtfgraphs

New graph files are created here. These files have the suffix *.adtfgraph and contain

all created filter graphs as XML structure and the components they consist of

The layout attributes of a graph are stored in a file called *.adtfconfiglayout
The properties of a graph changed by the user are stored in a file called *.adtfproperties

A new folder named adtfsystems

When new system descriptions are created the *.adtfsystem files representing them at file level, are created here. Such a file contains

a list of environment variables
the platform dependend binaries
a list of plugin descriptions to load
an ordered list of services to load

The properties of a system configuration changed by the user are stored in a file called *.adtfproperties

Basics

Some important common information for each part of the CE in general.

Appearance

After loading a project, the CE will appear similiar to the following screenshot:

You can switch between light and dark mode and even read this setting from your OS. The system setting might be very helpful to fit to your other tools or also react to changes from outside (e.g. brightness sensors or other other OS tools/automization). See Tools > Options... > General:

Perspectives

The CE is a combination of different views (widgets) and comes with a default perspective (layout), which can be resetted anytime under View. Within this menubar entry you are able to enable or disbale these views and save own perspectives, which can be used and switched for different use cases.

This is very helpful especially when you do not only want to enable or disable specific views, you can also tab, dock, float, pin or rearrange each view including resizing and auto-hover.

Toolbar

The most useful menubar entries are also available as toolbar, which can be also hide, move or float like each view widget.

Common Usage

Each view has a different purpose, but it is also very important to know that they are connected to each other for interaction and provide the same behavior.

You will find a search bar in almost every view including the possibilty for changing search behavior, filtering, sorting and many more. For that, use the buttons on the right of the searchbar:

Another basic behavior is that every view has a context menu with all available actions with its specific purpose.

As you can see within this context menu there is also a Help entry which is provided on several places within the entire CE (especially for usable components like filters and services), which can be also triggered when selected by hitting F1. Furthermore, the menubar provides also a common Help entry.

Launch, Connect, Control and Attach

Within section Sessions you will learn, how a session can be launched, connected, controled and attached. Please also keep in mind, that launching and any remote access to a session is a very central use case so it is also available in the menubar and not only within the context menu of a session.

System Editor

The System Editor is available when a session has been selected to configure any runtime dependency or functionality. It can be opened from Sessions, Filter Graph Editor or directly via the menubar.

If your session incorporates with filter, streaming sources or streaming sinks that have dependencies to libraries outside of ADTF this is the right place to define them. Environments variables are useful to abstract away from platform specific paths usable as macros which makes it easier to transfer project files between different PCs or operting systems. You can define additional platform dependencies (e.g. OpenCV or Qt DLL libraries), services and plugins (*.adtfplugins).

If a component defines its dependencies (services, shared libraries) properly, the required services are added automatically as soon as the component has been dropped from the Components view into an Filter Graph Editor. If you want to know more about how components can define their dependencies follow this link.

The order in wich services are loaded can be influenced in two ways:

Services are loaded in a defined runlevel and can be changed in the System Editor
Services are loaded in the order they are defined in the System Editor. This order can be change with the up and down buttons.

If an service offers configuration options they will be shown by selecting the service and if you want to rename an service the Rename entry is your friend. Also if you want to define services in a different runlevel.

In order to avoid invalid system file paths when distributing a project, define an environment variable to abstract away the system file path using them as macros. All you have to do when moving to a different PC is adjust the environment variable accordingly.

Session Editor

The Session Editor is available when a session has been selected to create the used graph, system and property file. It can be opened from Sessions, Filter Graph Editor or directly via the menubar.

You can also include graphs from other sessions, especially for reusability issues. To make them available in the list of available subgraphs inside the Filter Graph Editor, you have to add the related sessions here in Session Editor. Including a graph from another session will not be a copy (only linked) and treated the same as adding a subgraph, but more like a blackbox - your scope will stay in the current session you are working on.

Areas

In order to start the CE go to the bin directory of the ADTF directory and double click on the adtf_configuration_editor.exe file.

The different views of the CE

Sessions - Manage, launch and connect to sessions within your project
Components - Already available components to be used within the graph
Store - Additional components available for download
Home - Landing Page and personalizable dashboard
Filter Graph Editor - Data receiving/transmitting/processing, filtering, calculation, visualisation, etc
Properties - Tweak the available settings of the selected component
Priorities - Adapt the priorities of components and connections
Validation Protocol - Listing current configuration problems
CE Log - The console output from CE itself (including JS/QML)

Sessions

This is the entry point after creating or loading a project, where you can switch, add or remove the containing sessions showing also their hierarchical relation when included. To define the relation between graph, system and properties within a session, please use the Session Editor. To configure and extend the functionality of a session for runtime, please use the System Editor.

Common overview

Available options

Besides basic adding, renaming, opening and removing sessions from your loaded project, the context menu contains quick launch options and entries for custom launch defintions (see Tools > Options... > Launchers).

Please note that our Quick Launch options and our default defined Custom Launch Options uses cmd on Windows (x86_64) and xterm on Linux (x86_64). For the Custom Launch Options you can adapt the behaiviour but for the both quick launch options make sure the related packages are installed, especially xterm on Linux (x86_64). Otherwise launching a session from CE won't work (see System Requirements).

Remote connection

The CE implements an RPC client which makes it possible to connect to a session - better say the related RPC interface of the ADTF Launcher. This will provide the user the option to remote control from within the Sessions in following two ways:

Launch and remote connect selected session

Enable remote connection for selected session (which already runs in related ADTF Launcher)

Under Tools > Options... > Remote Connections it is possible that the CE will always automatically connect to specified url, no matter if already running or needs to be launched, it will polled and connected when available: These can used with any specifed launcher by using the generic Launch... command:

Once there are one or more sessions connected, it will be visualized within the Sessions view by displaying the current runlevel:

Keep in mind that an enabled remote connection is still alive even after the shutdown of the connected session. This means the CE will keep on polling on specified URL(s) and automatically (re)connect with a (re)started ADTF Launcher which sessionname matches a session within your loaded project.

Within the context menu you will find options to control the session after launched and connected, e.g. to control runlevels, attach with other ADTF tools or handle running transitions like start, stop or init steps.

Another benefit is the visualization of live statistics directly at the Sample Streams within the Filter Graph Editor:

Components

The Component view holds the elements that can be drag and droped into the Graph Editor. You can choose between Type and Class ID for grouping.

Store

The CE also provides a integrated client to acces one ore more component stores. This view enables the user to search for available adtfplugins and components within the configured stores.

After that the associated settings can be configured and found under Tools > Options... > Store. The desired stores can be enabled by adding a URL and acces token to the list. Before a adtfplugin can be downloaded a location must be defined. Now the view can be used to browse and download the desired adtfplugins.

After a successful download the components are automatically loaded via the ADTF Environment Mechanism and are available in the Components view.

Home

This view is the main entry point for the CE. The Home view is not only a landing page, it offers some quick actions to create or open projects and jump to documentation at the top. The Left navigation bar provides some default actions linking to additional information which can be adapted and extended in your adtf_configuration_editor.cesettings file (see Tools > Options... > Home View)

Filter Graph Editor

The filter graph is where all about data streaming and runtime behaviour takes place. You can use filters as well as streaming sources and sinks. We recommend to separate your graphs info different parts (e.g. data receiver/transmitter, playback, data processing, visualization, etc) by using subgraphs/included graphs. (link for more information about streaming architecture).

Basics

Processing can be triggered with the help of different types of Runners. By default triggers are sent between the data samples and stimulate the following filter to do further processing, however if this behavior is not desired, connections can be configured to be asynchronous. In this case Timer Runner can be used to take control over the exact timing (this can be useful for expensive visual updates) or Thread Runner to do heavy processing on a different thread. To let data flow between two elements place a Sample Stream between them and connect the pins by drawing a line (will be added automatically during performing a pin-2-pin connection).

Appearance

Graph files can contain several graphs, which can be nested together as subgraphs. For your orientation, each graph window represents one graph file and shows the session in the tab title on top. The tab bar on the left are the single graphs within the shown graph file.

Use right-click and context menu in any free space of the graph area for defining interfaces for in and out relations and, of course, some zoom and auto-layout functionality. Furthermore the context menu provides the option for adding an existing graph as subgraph (handled like a common filter), from the same graph file or a different session using ADTF Include Mechanism (see Session Editor). You can open and jump into these subgraphs and edit both side-by-side.

Graph Navigator

The Filter Graph Editor contains also a Graph Navigator at the bottom right of the graph area for convenience regarding scrolling, moving, zooming and item selection in larger graph setups (see section Available shortcuts). To show click on the icon on the bottom right, per default it will behided again when changing the scope. You can adjust these behavior under Tools > Options... > Graph Editor

Quick Search

Due to the fact that graphs should be seperated but can be as well very large, we offer a Quick search. This will help to find and jump to all containing components within the selected graph, which is very helpful especially for a Sample Stream or Binding Proxy which label name is hidden and only visible as tooltip for a better overview. It is available in the context menu anywhere in the Filter Graph Editor as well as a shortcut. It provides a dropdown menu including all containing graph components

as well as an case sensitive auto completion in the type field. Use the arrow keys of the keyboard to complete the search strings or navigate through the component list:

Graph Labels

It is also possible to show or hide pin names of graph components. In case of hidden, the related content will only be visualized when selected or hovered by mouse. Furthermore, the Filter Graph Editor only marks recommended target pins during connection draw. Please keep in mind that the value of the property will be stored in the adtfuilayout of the adtfsession to guarantee your arrangement after loading the adtfsession. Keep also in mind the auto-layout will only cover visible content including pin names. Use this feature for compact behaviour. To enable/disable please navigate to View > Show Pin Names Permanently or use shortcut Ctrl + Space. Furthermore it is possible to show/hide sample stream names seperated (Toggle View > Show Sample Stream Names or use Shift + Space)

Align Helper

When you select more than one component within your graph, an align helper bar will appear in the upper left corner:

Change	Orientation	Keep
move all selected components to the left	farest left border of all selected components	vertical coordinates
move all selected components to the center	horizontal center of all selected components	vertical coordinates
move all selected components to the right	farest right border of all selected components	vertical coordinates
move all selected components to the top	farest top border of all selected components	horizontal coordinates
move all selected components to the center	vertical center of all selected components	horizontal coordinates
move all selected components to the bottom	farest bottom border of all selected components	horizontal coordinates
rearrange all selected components horizontally	user specified distance	vertical coordinates
rearrange all selected components vertically	user specified distance	horizontal coordinates
rearrange all selected components horizontally	calculated distance	vertical coordinates, outer horizontal borders
rearrange all selected components vertically	calculated distance	horizontal coordinates, outer vertical borders

Properties

If components from Components or the Filter Graph Editor provide some configuration options or additional information and help, it will be displayed within the Property Editor by selecting the component within its Graph / System Editor. It is also possible to jump properties from dependent services.

It is possible to add properties manually to each components and whole graphs. This is useful to create generic graphs, which can be included as configurable subgraphs. Furthermore you can link properties of components to graph properties to make them available to set from "outside" (parent graph). Please also have a look at Use and link graph properties for more information.

Priorities

This view is to show and edit the priority of connections and components. For an explanation what happens during (de)initialization please have a detailed look at Session Initialization .

Scripts

This view shows available scripts for automization and convenience within the ADTF Configuration.

Scripts are provided by adtfenvironment files within the node ce_plugin_directory.

Here is an short example, how our initial example scripts can be used and may help. Of course this setup is simple and limited to this use case. Feel free to extend/adapt. In upcoming versions, we will ship more and more scripts and also document the API and examples how the user can provide or adapt own functionality for its needs. See also Scripting within ADTF Configuration Editor.

Validation Protocol

All session, graph, system, property or setting related problems spotted by the CE are displayed here.

The get further information or help to solve the the entry, please consider the context menu for details:

If the problem is related to a specific graph component, it will be also marked within the Filter Graph Editor including a tooltip.

CE Log

Within this view, you can redirect the console output including also JavaScript / QML occur within the CE:

This can be different loglevels from the CE itself, but also come along inside custom Qml Filter Editor scripts. You can also have a look at $(ADTF)/bin/adtf_playback_input_filtereditor.qml which will be used to create pins from the .adtfdat within the ADTFDAT File Player. Other examples can be found as well at $(ADTF_DIR)/bin/*.qml.

You can enable/disable the logging persistent within Tools > Options... > General or temporary by starting the CE with flag --enable-logging.

Options

Here you can define custom settings for the CE.

General

This section is to adapt basic appearance and behavior.

Graph Editor

This section handles behavior within Filter Graph Editor and its Graph Navigator.

Home View

This section is your possibility to enhance the landing page with useful shortcuts for your daily work.

Environment

This section shows each relation and included loaded package.

Launchers

This section defines additional shortcuts and to launch sessions.

License

This section handles the entire license management for ADTF Tools and Plugins.

Remote Connections

This sections manages URLs for remote connection and options to disabling RPC & friends.

Store

This section handles all the settings neccessary to use the CE as client for one or more component stores. At least one store endpoint consisting of an URL and access token must be defined in order to use this feature. If you wish to download adtfplugins as well be sure to set the download location.

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl + N`	Create project
`Ctrl + O`	Open project
`Ctrl + S`	Save project
`Ctrl + W`	Close project
`Ctrl + Q`	Exit application
`Ctrl + Z`	Undo
`Ctrl + Y`	Redo
`Alt + O`	Open Options
`Ctrl + F1`	Open documentation of ADTF Configuration Editor
`Shift + F1`	Show About Dialog

Projects and Sessions

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl + Shift + N`	Add new session to project
`Ctrl + Shift + O`	Open selected session
`F2`	Rename selected session
`Del`	Remove selected session
`F5`	Launch selected session with ADTF Launcher
`Ctrl + F5`	Launch selected session with ADTF Launcher (using debug binaries)
`Shift + F5`	Launch selected session with ADTF Launcher (enabled profiling)
`F6`	Launch selected session with ADTF Control
`Ctrl + F6`	Launch selected session with ADTF Control (using debug ADTF Launcher and binaries)
`Shift + F6`	Launch selected session with ADTF Control (enabled profiling)
`F7`	Launch selected session with (Deprecated) ADTF GUI Control
`Ctrl + F7`	Launch selected session with (Deprecated) ADTF GUI Control (using debug ADTF Launcher and binaries)
`F8`	Launch selected session with FEP-Selfmanaged Launcher
`Ctrl + F8`	Launch selected session with FEP-Selfmanaged Launcher (using debug binaries)
`F9`	Launch selected session with FEP Launcher
`Ctrl + F9`	Launch selected session with FEP Launcher (using debug binaries)
`Ctrl + Shift + E`	Enable remote connection for selected session
`Ctrl + Shift + L`	Launch selected session (remote connection will be enabled)
`Alt + Y`	Open System Editor
`Alt + E`	Open Session Editor

Attach

Shortcut	Action
`Alt + C`	Attach with ADTF Control
`Alt + G`	Attach with (Deprecated) ADTF GUI Control
`Alt + L`	Attach with ADTF Log View
`Alt + P`	Attach with ADTF Property Editor
`Alt + S`	Attach with ADTF Status Monitor