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

Maintainer

Yuki Furuta <furushchev@jsk.imi.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp>