What is a Component?

Components are core to how Iguana X works.

Interfaces are built up of one or more components

This shows three connected components represented in the flow chart of the dashboard:

You can see these components in the list view on the side of the dashboard also:

Components can be viewed, started, stopped and configured through their card view

The card view shows the use of Custom Fields which can be used to change the configuration of the component. You can stop and start the component with the switch in the top left.

Each component is written in Lua

By expanding the template section we can get access to it:

Now we see this:

HL7 Server is written in Lua and the source code of the component is stored in Lua . There are no built in components in IguanaX. All the components are written in Lua which means you can look at how they are implemented and alter them to meet your specific requirements.

You can see the source code of the component in the Translator view

Components can use libraries which are shared across many components

IguanaX makes it possible use common libraries across many different components.

These libraries are contained in their own git “sub” repositories. They make use of the help system in IguanaX. We provide a number of libraries but you can also write and distribute your own libraries.

All components and libraries are managed by Git - each component is self contained as a single repository

Git is an integral part of how Iguana X works. Everything component is implemented as a Translator component and the source code for these components is stored in Git repositories.

For convenience of deployment it’s helpful to store these components on a platform like http://bitbucket.org or http://github.com. Currently we use bitbucket.

If Git is new to you, see Source control basic concepts to understand Git.