Interfaces

GTlab’s extensibility is achieved through a set of interfaces that each module can implement. There are many different interfaces in GTlab, each for a different purpose. As an example, the data model interface allows to define data models for the project structure. On the other hand, the MDI interface allows to customize the user interface for the data model objects including writing custom editors.

Thus, a module typically implements a couple of different interfaces, but not necessarily all, as depicted in the following figure.

The most important interface is GtModuleInterface, as this is the main entry point of each module. This needs to be implemented by all modules, such that they can be recognized by GTlab. A module though does not need a main() function, in camparison to standalone executables.

This is the list of all interfaces, GTlab modules can implement:

GTlab’s basic interfaces

Interface	About
Module Interface	The main entry point for a GTlab module.
Datamodel Interface	Used to define custom data objects and object hierarchies.
Process Interface	Used to define process elements such as calculators and tasks.
MDI Interface	Used to customize the GTlab GUI, i.e. editors or custom actions for objects.
Importer Interface and Exporter Interface	Used to implement importer and exporter of specific objects.