CommandKit

Command Kit #

Your component's commands appear in every palette that serves the command registry, the CommandPalette inside TouchDesigner and the TDXL launcher's (> / ? in both), without it having to know anything about the registry. Drop this COMP inside your component, mark the methods you want exposed, and they show up.

It is guarded throughout: when no registry is in the session, nothing happens and nothing errors. A component carrying the kit works exactly the same for someone who never installs the palette or the launcher.

Adopting it #

1. Drag the COMP in as a direct child of your component's root.
2. Mark your commands (either way below).
3. Done. The kit announces your component on load, once you actually declare something. After changing your command set at runtime: op('FNS_CommandKit').Announce().

Decorator: derives everything from your code #

FNSCommand = op('FNS_CommandKit').mod('FNSCommand')  # import

class MyToolExt:
    @FNSCommand.fns_command(help='Set the project tempo')
    def SetBpm(self, bpm: float = 120, sync: bool = False):
        ...

The label comes from the CamelCase name, the help from the docstring's first line, and the prompted parameters from the signature: type hints become styles, typing.Literal[...] becomes a menu, and a parameter with no default is required. Extras: fns_command(label=…, help=…, hidden=True, params=[…]), plus context= (what the command acts on, so a palette can grey it out when that subject is absent), state= (a live value to show as a chip), surface= and capability= (where and how a consumer may present it), and canonical= (a cross-package identity for a command another package might ship too; the newest package wins). The registry page explains each.

Explicit spec: no imports at all #

Promote a FnsCommand spec instead, for components that would rather not import anything. See the kit's own README DAT for that form.

Rules worth knowing #

• Command ids are permanent. Favourites, hidden flags and presets in both palettes key on tool#id, and the id derives from the method name, so renaming a shipped method, or the component, orphans all of them. Treat every shipped id as public API.
• Handlers run synchronously on the main thread. Return quickly and kick long work off with run(..., delayFrames=1).
• Caps: 24 commands per component, 6 parameters per command.
• Placed more than once? Promote FnsInstance() returning a short label for each copy, and FnsToolName() returning one shared name when the copies' COMP names differ. Palettes then tell the copies apart, and favourites reach all of them. Needs FNS_CommandRegistry 3.2.1 or newer; older registries ignore both.

Components inside the FNS toolkit do not need this kit; they already carry an ExtUtils with the announcer in it. This is for everything else.