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Helmholtz Imaging
MDC Berlin

Run a solution from a catalog

Learning objectives:
  • browse a catalog online
  • install a solution and find out what it needs
  • run a solution with your own arguments

You need Album on your computer: the installation guide shows how to install it. If you prefer clicking to typing, the graphical interface does the same steps.

Every Album installation comes with the default catalog. It holds templates for solutions in many languages and tools. Here you take one of them, the Python template, through the steps that work for every solution: look at it, install it, ask what it needs and run it.

Task 1 - Browse a catalog online

Open the website of the default catalog and find the Python template. Its page shows what the solution does, its arguments and its versions, and links to a guide with the commands for exactly this solution.

Task 2 - Install the solution
album install album:template-python:0.1.1

album:template-python:0.1.1 are the coordinates of the solution: its group, name and version. Album creates an environment just for this solution, with the Python version it asks for, and installs the solution into it. The first installation takes a moment.

Task 3 - Ask what it needs
album info album:template-python:0.1.1

Album shows what the solution does, who made it, its license, the commands to install, run and test it, and its run parameters: this solution takes --name, with the default Bugs Bunny.

Task 4 - Run it
album run album:template-python:0.1.1 --name Album

The solution greets you with Hi Album nice to meet you!. Without --name it uses the default.

Next time you can skip the separate installation: album run <solution> --install installs a solution if it is not installed yet and runs it.

Task 5 (optional) - Find more solutions

Add the catalog of Helmholtz Imaging and search all your catalogs at once:

album add-catalog https://gitlab.com/album-app/catalogs/helmholtz-imaging
album search napari

The results start with the catalog name, for example helmholtz-imaging:de.mdc-berlin:view-in-napari:0.1.0.

More about solutions and catalogs on the command line: usage instructions. Next, you write your own solution - the Python template you just ran is a good starting point.

Next steps

Create a solution, wrap existing tools

Click here to read about how to wrap existing code into an Album solution - yourself or with an LLM. It's a single Python file!
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