Storyboard Engine environment
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Storyboard Engine environment

The following pieces are required when putting the Engine on an embedded target:

Engine

In order to deploy the engine to an embedded target we must first decide which plugins are needed.  The Engine is a self contained executable which loads plugins for added functionality.  The Engine can be run as follows:

sbengine [-v] [-o]  [deployment bundle]

Options:

        -v        verbosity, more v’s means more verbose output

        -o        plugin or manager options

Each plugin or manager can have specific options.  The option string is defined as follows:

        -o plugin_name,option[,option]…]

Each plugin or manager defines its name and possible options.

Manager options

Action Manager

Name:        action_mgr

Options:

        none

Data Manager

Name:        data_mgr

Options:

        none

Model Manager

Name:        model_mgr

Options:

        plugin_path=[path to plugins as a string]

Render manager

Depends on render manager being used.

Resource Manager

Name:         resource_mgr

Options:

        image=[image memory pool size in kilobytes]        default=unlimited

        font=[font memory pool size in kilobytes]           default=unlimited

Screen Manager

Name:  screen_mgr

Options:

        swcursor        Enable the rendering of a software sursor.

        redraw_complet        Generate a complete event for every screen update

        dl=[layer index]        Disable the use of a particular hardware layer.

IO Manager

Name:         io_mgr

Options:

queue_size=[size of event queue in bytes]                default=1024 bytes

Plugins

The Storyboard product ships with a standard set of plugins which add functionality to the system.  Plugins are loaded based on the GRE_PLUGINS environment variable.  This variable can be a directory where all plugins are loaded from or a “;” separated list of plugins.

Some plugins have options that can be passed via the command line to the the plugin. To pass on option to a plugin use the -o option to sbengine in this format -o[PLUGIN_NAME],[PLUGIN OPTION]

Animation

Provides animation support.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-animation.so

Plugin Name : animate

Plugin Options :
         None

Event Redirection

Redirect events to another GREIO channel

Plugin : libgre-plugin-event-redirect.so

Plugin Name : redirect

Plugin Options :
         None

Gesture

Capture mouse or touchscreen events and generate gesture events

Plugin : libgre-plugin-gesture.so

Plugin Name : gesture

Plugin Options :
         None

What this plugin does is translates cursor movements from a mouse or a touchscreen in to a gesture. When a button is depressed, or your finger is dragged across the touchscreen, the gesture plugin tracks it. When the button is release or your take your finger off of the touchscreen, the plugin emits the gesture.

Gestures are made up of a series of numbers. The numbers represent the direction that the cursor was travelling. Here are what the numbers mean:

1 = Up
2 = Up and to the Right
3 = Right
4 = Down and to the Right
5 = Down
6 = Down and to the Left
7 = Left
8 = Up and to the Left 

By default the gesture plugin registers the Up, Right, Down, and Left gestures as 1, 3, 5, 7. The numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 aren't enabled by default, but you can define them in a custom gesture definite file. This file is a a simple text file that defines an event, followed by the gesture number. For example, to define a 'z' gesture, you could put the following in the a gesture-definition.txt file:
gre.gesture.ze,363

That means when the gesture plugin detects a right motion, followed by a down and to the left motion, followed by another right motion, it will emit a gre.gesture.ze event. 

You can point the gesture plugin at the custom gesture definition file by exporting the environment variable GESTURE_DEF_FILE which will be set to the path to the custom definition file. 
             

GREIO

Implement the Storyboard IO API and external application communication

Plugin :libgre-plugin-greio.so

Plugin Name : greio

Plugin Options :
        channel -   The name of the default greio channel

Example :
        sbengine -ogreio,channel=my_greio_channel example.gapp

Logger

Log system messages for debugging.  

Plugin : libgre-plugin-logger.so

Plugin Name : logger

Plugin Options :
        io
        data

If IO logging is enabled then events and their data payload will be displayed as they are received.  The data payload is dumped to the standard output in both hexadecimal and character formats.

If data logging is enabled, then data changes in the data manager will be displayed as they occur.  The data key that has been changed is displayed to standard output.

 The logger is disabled by default and can be enabled by passing ‘-ologger[,io][,data]’ to the sbengine application.

Lua

The Lua script plugin.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-lua.so

Plugin Name : lua

Plugin Options :
                None

Screen path transition

Transition from one screen to another in a path based method: Right/left or Up/down

Plugin : libgre-plugin-screen-path.so

Plugin Name : screen-path

Plugin Options :
                None

Screen scale transition

Transition from one screen to another by scaling the new screen to fill the display

Plugin : libgre-plugin-screen-scale.so

Plugin Name : screen-scale

Plugin Options :
                None

System

Execute a system command.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-system.so

Plugin Name : system

Plugin Options :
                None

Timer

Allow external timer events to be used by the application.  Adds support for the gra.timer action.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-timer.so

Plugin Name : timer

Plugin Options :
                None

Linux touchscreen support

Add support for touchscreens based on the Linux “tslib”.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-tslib.so

Plugin Name : tslib

Plugin Options :
                None

This plugin uses the tslib environment to function.  If you do not have the variables setup the plugin will not load or function properly.

TSLIB_CONSOLEDEVICE

TSLIB_TSDEVICE

TSLIB_CALIBFILE

TSLIB_CONFFILE

Linux input support

Add support for Linux input devices such as mouse and keyboards based on the Linux input system.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-dev-input.so

Plugin Name : dev-input

Plugin Options :
                mouse=[mouse device]
                kbd=[keyboard device]

This plugin uses the "/dev/input" devices to function. You must pass one of the plugin options in order for this plugin to function

Example :

sbengine -odev-input,mouse=/dev/input/event0

Polygon

Provides support for the polygon render extension.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-polygon.so

Plugin Name : poly

Plugin Options :
                None

External

Enables external applications to render content into the external render extension.

Plugin : libgre-plugin-external.so

Plugin Name : external

Plugin Options :
                None

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