app_manager

A package for making launch file an application

Installation

Run sudo apt-get install ros-$ROS_DISTRO-app-manager

Usage

The app_manager node loads information of available application from .installed files. .installed file is a yaml file that defines installed applications in a package like below:

# package_root/apps/app.installed
apps:
- app: pkg_name/app_name1
  display: sample app
- app: pkg_name/app_name2
  display: another sample app

Once .installed file is defined, you have to notify the location of the files to app_manager by either of two ways:

1. Give the locations as arguments

One way to notify the location is to add --applist argument with rosrun.

rosrun app_manager app_manager --applist `rospack find package_root`/apps

This is useful for testing one small .installed file or a demonstration.

1. Register as export attributes

Another way to notify the location is to define them in <export> tag in package.xml.

<!-- package_root/package.xml -->
<package>
  ...
  <run_depend>app_manager</run_depend>
  ...
  <export>
    <app_manager app_dir="${prefix}/apps"/>
  </export>
</package>

And launch app_manager without any argument:

rosrun app_manager app_manager

app_manager node automatically searches all .installed files and register as available applications.

Applications can be filtered by platform defined in each .app file. If you set the parameter /robot/type to pr2, then apps for platform pr2 will be available.

rosparam set /robot/type pr2

APIs

All topics/services are advertised under the namespace specified by the parameter /robot/name.

Publishing Topics

• app_list: List available/running applications
• application/app_status: Current status of app manager

Services

• list_apps: List available/running applications
• start_app: Start an available application
• stop_app: Stop a runniing application
• reload_app_list: Reload installed applications from *.installed) file.

Examples

Start default roscore

$ roscore

and start another roscore for app_manager from another Terminal

$ roscore -p 11312

Start app_manager

$ rosrun app_manager app_manager --applist `rospack find app_manager`/test/applist1 _interface_master:=http://localhost:11312

Make sure that it founds the apps

[INFO] [1575604033.724035]: 1 apps found in /home/user/catkin_ws/src/app_manager/test/applist1/apps1.installed

Use service calls to list and start apps.

$ rosservice call robot/list_apps
running_apps: []
available_apps:
  -
    name: "app_manager/appA"
    display_name: "Android Joystick"
    icon:
      format: ''
      data: []
    client_apps: []

$ rosservice call /robot/start_app "name: 'app_manager/appA'
args:
- key: 'foo'
  value: 'bar'"

started: True
error_code: 0
message: "app [app_manager/appA] started"
namespace: "/robot/application"

Plugins

You can define app_manager plugins as below in app file such as test.app.

# app definitions
display: Test app
platform: all
launch: test_app_manager/test_app.xml
interface: test_app_manager/test_app.interface
# plugin definitions
plugins:
  - name: mail_notifier_plugin  # name to identify this plugin
    type: app_notifier/mail_notifier_plugin  # plugin type
    launch_args:  # arguments for plugin launch file
      foo: hello
    launch_arg_yaml: /etc/mail_notifier_launch_arg.yaml  # argument yaml file for plugin launch file
    # in this case, these arguments will be passed.
    # {"hoge": 100, "fuga": 30, "bar": 10} will be passed to start plugin
    # {"hoge": 50, "fuga": 30} will be passed to stop plugin
    plugin_args:  # arguments for plugin function
      hoge: 10
      fuga: 30
    start_plugin_args:  # arguments for start plugin function
      hoge: 100  # arguments for start plugin function arguments (it overwrites plugin_args hoge: 10 -> 100)
      bar: 10
    stop_plugin_args:  # arguments for stop plugin function
      hoge: 50  # arguments for stop plugin function arguments (it overwrites plugin_args hoge: 10 -> 50)
    plugin_arg_yaml: /etc/mail_notifier_plugin_arg.yaml  # argument yaml file for plugin function arguments
  - name: rosbag_recorder_plugin  # another plugin
    type app_recorder/rosbag_recorder_plugin
    launch_args:
      rosbag_path: /tmp
      rosbag_title: test.bag
      compress: true
      rosbag_topic_names:
        - /rosout
        - /tf
        - /tf_static
plugin_order: # plugin running orders. if you don't set field, plugin will be run in order in plugins field
  start_plugin_order:  # start plugin running order
    - rosbag_recorder_plugin  # 1st plugin name
    - mail_notifier_plugin  #2nd plugin name
  stop_plugin_order:  # start plugin running order
    - rosbag_recorder_plugin
    - mail_notifier_plugin

Sample plugin repository is knorth55/app_manager_utils.

For more detailed information, please read #25.

Maintainer

Yuki Furuta «furushchev@jsk.imi.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp»

Changelog for package app_manager

1.3.0 (2021-11-08)

• update setuptools to follow noetic migration guide (#36)
• app_manager cannot start app after failing app #42 (#42)
  • set current_app None when start failed
  • add test_start_fail.test
  • need catch error on _stop_current()
  • add test_start_fail.test test to check #42, app_manager cannot start app after failing app
• add test to check if we forget catkin_install_python (#44)
  • call app_manager/appA with python2/python3 with ROS_PYTHON_VERSION
  • use catkin_install_python for noetic
  • add test to check if we forget to use catkin_install_python
• add_rostest(test/test_plugin.test) (#45)
  • run rosdep install in devel_create_tasks.Dockerfile
  • update to format3 and install python-rosdep
  • use port 11313 for app_manager in test_plugin.test
  • add_rostest(test/test_plugin.test)
• add more test code (#41
  • show more error messages
  • default return value of plugin_order must be list
  • plugins: 'launch_args', 'plugin_args', 'start_plugin_args', 'stop_plugin_args' must be dict, not list
  • test_plugin: add test to check plugins
  • use list(self.subs.items()) instead of self.subs.items()
  • Error processing request: '>' not supported between instances of 'NoneType' and 'int'
  • python3: AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'iteritems'
  • add test for list_apps/stop_app, add test_stop_app.py
  • python3: AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'iterkeys'
  • add 2to3 in CHECK_PYTHON3_COMPILE
  • add test/test_app.test
  • test/resources/example-moin.launch: use arg launch_prefox to select if we use xterm or not
• add arguments in StartAppRequest (#27)
  • use req.args for launch args in app_manager.py
  • add args in StartApp srv
• do not run stop_app when _stopping is true (#38)
• fix travis build (#39)
  • fix typo in .travis.yml
  • run with full path
  • add CHECK_PYTHON2_COMPILE and CHECK_PYTHON3_COMPILE tests
• use plugins as instance / use normal method in app_manager_plugin (#37)
• set stopped true in app timeout (#31)
• use system python to check python3 compileall (#34)
• Contributors: Kei Okada, Shingo Kitagawa

1.2.0 (2021-03-03)

• Merge pull request #29 from knorth55/add-stopped
• Merge pull request #28 from knorth55/add-timeout
• Merge pull request #30 from knorth55/add-all-availables add available_apps in all platform apps
• add available_apps in all platform apps
• add stopped context in app_manager plugin
• add timeout field in app file
• add enable_app_replacement param in app_manager (#26) This allows for both behaviors (replace currently running app or error out) and let's users choose without changing code...
• add noetic test and also checks python 2/3 compatibility (#24)
  • add noetic test and also checks python 2/3 compatibility
  • fix to support both python 2/3

  * use rospy.log** instead of print Co-authored-by: Shingo Kitagawa <<shingogo@hotmail.co.jp>>

• Add app manager plugin (#25) Enable aspect-oriented modelling, e.g.
  • send a mail when someone starts an app
  • auto-record rosbags during app run

  - auto-upload files on app-close ...

  • start plugin launch in app_manager
  • start and stop plugin function
  • pass app in plugin functions
  • add exit_code in stop_plugin_attr
  • stop plugin functions when shutdown is called
  • launch when plugin
  • load plugin launch when it exists
  • use ctx instead of exit_code
  • pass exit_code to ctx
  • add plugins in AppDefinition
  • add _current_plugins and _plugin_context
  • pass launch arguments
  • add plugin_args for app plugins
  • overwrite roslaunch.config.load_config_default for kinetic
  • add __stop_current for shutdown and __stop_current
  • support "module: null" syntax for app definition
  • add app_manager plugin base class
  • refactor scripts/app_manager
  • add start_plugin_args and stop_plugin_args
  • add start_plugin_arg_yaml and stop_plugin_arg_yaml
  • add launch_arg_yaml
  • add plugin_order to set plugin order
  • update readme to add plugin doc
  • update readme to add app definitions
• fix readme (#23)
• add exit_code log in app_manager (#22) add exit_code log in app_manager During successful execution, [dead_list]{.title-ref} should always end up empty.
• add all platform for all robots (#17) add an additional keyword to explicitly support 'all' platforms
• use rospack to search for app_manager app_dir (#19)
  • use rospack to search for app_manager app_dir
  • remove unused imports
  • use both --applist and plugin app_dir
• Merge pull request #20 from knorth55/fix-print-python3 use rospy.logerr to escape print error in python3
• use rospy.logerr to escape print error in python3
• Contributors: Kei Okada, Michael Görner, Shingo Kitagawa

1.1.1 (2020-04-13)

• use python3.5 for travis (#18)
• use app_manager/example-min (#15)
  • example-min.launch location changed due to https://github.com/PR2/app_manager/pull/15
  • use app_manager/example-min, since talker.py was removed from rospy in melodic https://github.com/ros/ros_comm/pull/1847
• update document (#14)
  • Add more info for how to start apps, closes https://github.com/PR2/app_manager/issues/13
• Fix travis (#16)
  • fix workspace name due to ros-infrastructure/ros_buildfarm#577
• install launch directory (#9)
• add run_depend of app_manager in README.md (#11)
• update travis.yml (#10)
  • add empty applist0 directory c.f. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/115983/how-can-i-add-an-empty-directory-to-a-git-repository
  • calling self._load() and updating self._file_mtime are never happens, since self.update() is removed in https://github.com/PR2/app_manager/pull/7/files#diff-a8d7b30ba0e424e10aa794dec1928181L98
  • revert code from #7, which wrongly removed invalid_installed_files

  • example-min.launch file has been moved to subdir since 2012

    https://github.com/ros/ros_comm/commit/964da45c6959bf9c2bde8680c69d1ab36e3770b1#diff-03b2e74d781fea8d7240c1fdd29a41a9

• Contributors: Kei Okada, Shingo Kitagawa, Takayuki Murooka, Yuki Furuta

1.1.0 (2018-08-29)

• Support loading installed apps from export tags (#7)
  • app_manager: add reload_app_list service to dynamically reload apps
  • filter apps by robot platform
  • add support for loading app directories from plugins
• Cleanup unused files (#6)
• Contributors: Yuki Furuta

1.0.5 (2018-02-14)

• Merge pull request #5 from k-okada/orp change maintainer to ROS orphaned package maintainer
• change maintainer to ROS orphaned package maintainer
• Contributors: Kei Okada

1.0.3 (2015-02-06)

1.0.2 (2014-10-14)

• changelogs
• Fixed installs on app_manager
• Contributors: TheDash
• Fixed installs on app_manager
• Contributors: TheDash