SimpleCmd Overview (Installing, Using, Tweaking, Troubleshooting, & Developing)

[Scot Brew]

Overview
The SimpleCmd framework provides a simple, quick, and easy way to leverage the power of command-line jobs and auto-generate artist-friendly submission dialogs.

It takes the parameters from a submission dialog and turns them into a command-line submission to Qube. Since it uses standard cmdline and cmdrange backend on the Worker machines, no addititional installation of files is necessary on the Workers. 

The framework provides a straightforward way to expose parameters to artists in just a few short lines.  The framework does use python, though no expert knowledge of python is needed for most cases.  One can use python to write parsers to scan the "help" files as done with mayabatch and xsibatch.

Installing

• Automatic (QubeGUI 5.3 and above)
  
  • Download the simplecmd
  • Launch the Qube GUI
  • Use menu "File->Install SimpleCmd..." to install the SimpleCmd to the simplecmds/ directory under the GUI.
• Manual (optional steps, required if using QubeGUI 5.2):
  
  • Download the simplecmd
  • Copy the simplecmd to the simplecmds/ directory below the qube executable (for example, on Windows this is by default C:/Program Files/pfx/qube/bin/simplecmds)

Using

• Installed SimpleCmds will show up under the "Submit" menu
• Use them as a normal jobtype

Tweaking
It may be desirable to tweak some of the default parameters, like the executable path.  To do so:

• Launch a text editor (like wordpad, vi, emacs) and load the simplecmd script
• Adjust the "value" or "default" for the parameters to meet your studio needs
• Comment out under create() any submission dialogs not needed (if multiple ones are specified in the simplecmd)

Troubleshooting
Most likely, an invalid executable path is the most likely cause for a simplecmd to fail after installation.  Make sure that either the application you are using (Maya, Max, XSI, etc) is in the Worker's path, or that the full path is explicitly specified when submitting the job.  See "Tweaking" above for setting the defaults.

Developing
See the "SimpleCmd Developer Guide" for more detailed information and existing simplecmds as examples. The guide can be found from the QubeGUI (version 5.3 and above) help menu under "Help->SimpleCmd Developer Guide".  It can be manually found under .../pfx/qube/api/python/qb/gui/README_SIMPLECMD.html.