12.7 - Distributing Data with Plug-Ins

If you write a plug-in that affects schemas, model definitions, or element definitions, you might have new or modified settings that you want to install with your plug-in.

You would have created the modified settings file by adding and editing the appropriate settings in VR-Vantage and saving the settings to file.

You could install your settings files and ask your customer to merge in the settings by hand in the GUI, or you can merge them in as part of your installation process. VR-Vantage includes a tool, vrvMerge, for merging settings.

The merge tool can merge files that have the following extensions:

• SMTX - schema definition file. The schema definition files provided with VR-Vantage are:
  • Model Definitions.smtx
  • Visual Definitions.smtx.
• OMMX - model definition file. VR-Vantage has one model definition file - Model Definitions.ommx.
• VODI - visual definition file. The visual definitions files provided with VR-Vantage are:
  • EntityElementDefinitions.vodi
  • InteractionsElementDefinitions.vodi
  • TacticalGraphicsElementDefinitions.vodi.

vrvMerge has the following syntax:

INSTALL_DIR/bin/vrvMergeTool input_file merge_file [output_file]

where:

• INSTALL_DIR is an environment variable that specifies the VR-Vantage installation directory. (VR-Vantage does not add itself to the system path, so the command must specify a fully qualified path to vrvMerge.)
• input_file specifies the settings file to merge into VR-Vantage.
• merge_file is the settings file to update.
• output_file is an alternative output file for the merged settings. By default, output is to the file specified by merge_file.

If the file extensions do not match or if an extension is not supported, vrvMerge prints an error.

The following example merges MyModelDefinitions into the default model definitions file.

[INSTALL_DIR]/bin/vrvMergeTool "MyModelDefinitions.ommx" "Model Definitions.ommx"

You can run this tool as many times as you wish for model definitions.

Note

The merge tool updates the settings files in ./appData. If a user restores the factory settings, the merged settings will be lost. You will need to provide your customer with instructions for merging in your modified files if they get overridden.

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