Pline

Documentation ⇢
Demo site ⇢
Preprint article ⇢

JSON-based web interfaces for command-line programs

Pline is a specification for describing command-line programs and their interfaces, and its implementation as a lightweight web app. Pline renders web interfaces from JSON-formatted interface descriptions in plugin.json files. Custom interfaces can be written using the plugin API and distributed by e.g. publishing the JSON files to the plugins repository. Pline was designed with the bioinformatics community in mind, but the domain-agnostic API makes it easy to craft graphical interfaces for any command-line executable. Documentation, downloads and example interfaces are available on the Pline website.

Installation

Download and unzip Pline+plugin bundles from the Pline website, or:

1. Clone/download this repository
2. Add interfaces from the plugins repository

Usage

1. Go to the Pline directory and launch the server: python pline_server.py (or just ./pline)
2. Point a web browser to http://localhost:8000
3. Select an interface from the Tools menu
4. Fill the inputs and click RUN to launch the tool
5. The input/output/log files are accessible in the analyses folder (by default Pline/analyses/)

Configuration

Pline can be run as a desktop web app or as a shared/public web service. The server configuration can be changed in server_settings.cfg or set with launch parameters (see ./pline --help).