Extending OpenRocket

OpenRocket is built to be extensible using plugins. You can implement your own functionality or download plugins implemented by others.

This document describes how to implement your own extensions to OpenRocket.

Plugins

Extensions to OpenRocket are implemented as plugins. All interfaces that may have multiple implementations should be implemented using plugin interfaces internally. That way, external plugins may create new implementations.

A plugin is compiled into a JAR file and placed into the OpenRocket plugin directory. These JAR files are included in the OpenRocket classpath at startup and scanned for classes and interfaces annotated with @Plugin.

• A plugin interface is a Java interface that is annotated with the @Plugin annotation. These interfaces are scanned from the classpath at startup and can be queried by the code.
• A plugin implementation is a Java class that implements a plugin interface and is annotated with the @Plugin annotation.

In practise the plugin interfaces are defined by the internal OpenRocket code, and are extension points which internal and external plugins can implement.

Note: Many of the internal interfaces have not yet been changed to use the plugin interface. They will be migrated one by one. Help is appreciated.

Simulation extensions

Simulation extensions allow modifying simulations before or during a simulation. They allow controlling almost every aspect of a simulation.

A simulation extensions typically consists of 2-4 Java classes described below. The recommended way of implementing these interfaces is by extending the abstract classes. This allows maximum compatibility with future versions of OpenRocket when new methods are added to the interfaces.

	Interface / abstract class	Description
Simulation extension	SimulationExtension AbstractSimulationExtension	Contains the extension configuration for a single simulation and a method that is called whenever the simulation is started. A new instance is created for each simulation that has the extension defined.
Simulation extension provider	SimulationExtensionProvider AbstractSimulationExtensionProvider	An OpenRocket plugin that functions as a factory class for the simulation extension. It provides the extension ID, location in the UI menu and instances of the extension.
Simulation extension configurator	SwingSimulationExtensionConfigurator AbstractSwingSimulationExtensionConfigurator	An (optional) OpenRocket plugin that provides a GUI for configuring the simulation extension.
Simulation listener	SimulationListener SimulationComputationListener SimulationEventListener AbstractSimulationListener	A listener that can be attached to a simulation at runtime. The listener is notified of all actions during the simulation and it can modify and affect the simulation while it is being run. The simulation extension may add a simulation listener to the simulation run when it is started.

Simulation extension class

An instance of the simulation extension class is attached to each simulation that has the extension defined. It contains the configuration of the extension and a method that is called when the simulation is run.

You need to extend AbstractSimulationExtension and implement at least the initialize method. This method is called whenever a simulation run is started. It can modify the SimulationConditions, which contains the launch conditions of the simulation. It can also attach simulation listeners to the simulation, which allows interacting with the simulation while it is running.

Simulation extension provider

The provider is a factory class that creates instances of the simulation extension. It also provides an ID string identifying the simulation extension and the name and menu location of the extension.

When using AbstractSimulationExtensionProvider you only need to provide the constructor the simulation extension class and the name and menu location.

A single simulation extension provider can be used to provide multiple simulation extensions. For example, the provider could scan a directory for scripts and provide a simulation extension for each script file. The abstract class assumes you are only providing a single simulation extension.

Simulation extension configurator

The separate configurator provides a Swing GUI dialog to configure a single instance of a simulation extension. It is implemented as a separate plugin so that the plugin itself can be used also on platforms not supporting Swing (such as Android).

SwingSimulationExtensionConfigurator provides a ready framework where you only need to implement the getConfigurationComponent method, where you add the necessary components to a ready JPanel.

Simulation listeners

Simulation listeners are pieces of custom code that are run during a simulation run. They can either be implemented in Java, or in a scripting language of your choise by adding the Simulation extension in User code -> Scripts.

In Java, the recommended way of implementing a simulation listener is by extending the AbstractSimulationListener class and overriding the desired methods.

In scripts, you only need to implement the methods you need.

The methods, their arguments and return values are listed below. For scripting languages, replace with the corresponding object (for example in Ruby return nil instead of null). In many scripting languages, returning nothing or an undefined value will have the same effect as returning null. The methods may also throw exceptions to abort the simulation.

Method signature	Description
void startSimulation(SimulationStatus status)	Called when starting a simulation.