CuteHMI - Console (cutehmi.console.0)
Console

Development status

Interactive command line interface, which allows one to browse QML object model and evaluate expressions.

This tool allows one to execute QML expressions. One specifies an extension and the tool will make an attempt to import that extension and instantiate Console component. If the extension does not provide Console component an alternative non-GUI component may be specified with next positional argument. You can use --help command line argument to see a list of all possible command line options.

For example following command imports Console Example extension, which provides Console component allowing for some basic interaction with the tool.

cutehmi.console.0 CuteHMI.Examples.Console.0

Component Console could be specified directly.

cutehmi.console.0 CuteHMI.Examples.Console.0 Console

After starting the program, a command prompt is shown. Command line interpreter basically works in two modes: console command mode and QML expression mode. Any string that starts with \ character is interpreted as console command; everything else is interpreted as QML expression.

For example \quit string consists of quit command prepended by \ (which by the way is also treated as a command - the one that enables the console command mode), so it is interpreted as a console command, which quits the console.

# \quit
cutehmi.console.0: See you.

But the following are QML expressions with the results of evaluation printed below.

# 2+2
cutehmi.console.0: QVariant(int, 4)
# console.info("huhu")
qml: huhu

The motiviation behind this tool is to make it possible to conveniently set up or configure an extenision, in situations, when no GUI is available. Creating a schema of a database is an example use case.

Limitations

Except the obvious limitation like inability to represent GUI features or deficiencies of current version, Console may have troubles with extensions that use threads. As it does not provide dedicated output window nor customized input, such extensions may produce glitches in the command line.