Building and integrating your module

Writing a module’s code says nothing about how it’s built — and two approaches, very different from each other, are equally legitimate depending on what you plan to do with it.

Working on your own

Nothing requires going through the ost/ostmodules repository: a module can live in its own repository, with its own CMakeLists.txt, drawing inspiration from ost/ostmodules’s rather than slavishly copying it. Two pieces of information are enough to locate a real OST installation:

find_path(OST_INCLUDE_DIR ost/indimodule.h)
find_library(OST_LIBRARY_BASE NAMES libostbasemodule.so PATHS /usr/lib /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu)
find_library(OST_LIBRARY_INDI NAMES libostindimodule.so PATHS /usr/lib /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu)

ost/ostmodules does exactly that in cmake_modules/FindOSTSERVER.cmake — the simplest approach is still to read that file directly rather than guess it.

For a purely Basemodule module, only OST_LIBRARY_BASE is needed; OST_LIBRARY_INDI is only required for an IndiModule.

Contributing to the shared repository

For the module to be visible and maintained alongside the others, it joins ost/ostmodules:

1. Clone the repository, create a branch.
2. Add your own block in CMakeLists.txt, modeled on a simple existing module (osthello, for instance):

add_library(ostmonmodule SHARED
    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/modules/monmodule/monmodule.h
    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/modules/monmodule/monmodule.cpp
    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/modules/monmodule/monmodule.qrc
)
target_link_libraries(ostmonmodule PRIVATE
    ${OST_LIBRARY_BASE}        # ou ${OST_LIBRARIES} (base + indi) pour un IndiModule
    Qt${QT_VERSION_MAJOR}::Core
    Qt${QT_VERSION_MAJOR}::Concurrent
    Qt${QT_VERSION_MAJOR}::Widgets
    Threads::Threads
    z
)
target_compile_definitions(ostmonmodule PRIVATE MONMODULE_MODULE)

3. Add ostmonmodule to the install(TARGETS ...) list, a little further down in the same file.
4. Open a merge request.