How to write third party modules for manipulate

Writing third party modules for manipulate couldn't actually be much easier. However you will need to read the Developer Documentation so that you gain a clear understanding of how the variables and functions within Maniuplate work. It is also recommended you read the User documentation so that you can understand how the usage of Manipulate works.

In order to create a module for Manipulate you need to create two files, one is a plain text file and acts as a menu entry for your module and the other is the module itself. For the example I will create a simple hello world module

Menu Entry

Filename: hello_world.menu
File Contents;

hello_world - A module to print "hello world" to the screen

As you can see the menu entry is very simple. The first but is the name of your module and the second is a description of the module. The name of your module acts as the menu selection whilst the description informs the user what it actually does. It is very important that the module name you give is the same as that of the next fileminus the filename extension

Module

Filename: hello_world.mod
File Contents;

echo "Hello World"
sleep 1

The module is a BASH script, and should be written as a BASH script, however due to the way manipulate loads it you should not include the #!/bin/bash. For most modules this is not important, however if you wish your module to be able to exit the program you will encounter difficulties unless you omit this.

Once your module is created the place to install it is (from manipulates root folder)
.progs/modules/third_party

Manipulate will automatically find your module when the Third party Module menu is loaded.

Support for modules that run as soon as Manipulate has been started has not been included yet, but will follow soon.