Analytics plugin components (such as Plugin, Engine, and DeviceAgent) must send JSON manifests to the Media Server. These manifests define static plugin configurations and dynamic runtime settings.

During development and testing, you can capture these JSON manifests and settings to inspect them. You can also substitute them with custom files to test different behaviors without rebuilding your plugin.

Capture manifests

To capture manifests sent from your plugin to the Media Server:

1. Open the vms_server_plugins.ini file in a text editor.

2. Create the target directory on your system if it does not already exist.

3. Set the analyticsManifestOutputPath option to your target directory path:

   analyticsManifestOutputPath=captured/manifests

4. Restart the Media Server.

The Media Server saves every manifest it receives as a JSON file in the specified directory. File names include details about the component that generated them. If a file already exists, the Media Server overwrites it.

Example manifest output files

For a plugin named Stub Analytics Plugin, the generated files look like this:

• Plugin manifest: stub_analytics_plugin_manifest.json

• Engine manifest: stub_analytics_plugin_engine_a6f9ed2c-261f-be90-5627-5bac6d0e7110_manifest.json

• DeviceAgent manifest (specific camera): stub_analytics_plugin_device_e3e9a385-7fe0-3ba5-5482-a86cde7faf48_manifest.json

For full details on naming conventions, check the comments for analyticsManifestOutputPath in your vms_server_plugins.ini file.

Substitute manifests

To test how your plugin or Media Server behaves when a manifest changes, you can override the manifest string sent by the plugin with a custom file.

1. Capture the original manifests following the steps in the aforementioned Capture manifests.

2. Create a directory to hold your custom manifest files.

3. Copy the captured manifest files you want to modify into your new directory.

4. Edit the copied JSON files with your desired test values. Ensure the filenames match the original captured naming scheme.

5. In vms_server_plugins.ini, set the analyticsManifestSubstitutePath option to your custom directory:

   analyticsManifestSubstitutePath=substitute/manifests

6. Restart the Media Server.

The Media Server now ignores the plugin's native manifests and reads your custom manifest files instead.

Capture settings

You can capture the settings that the Media Server sends to your plugin.

1. Open vms_server_plugins.ini.

2. Create the target directory if it does not exist.

3. Set the analyticsSettingsOutputPath option to your target directory:

   analyticsSettingsOutputPath=captured/settings

4. Restart the Media Server.

The Media Server writes the settings files to your directory. Generated filenames use the suffix _effective_settings.json.

Example settings output files

• stub_analytics_plugin_engine_687611a2-fd30-94e7-7f4c-8705642b0bcc_effective_settings.json

• stub_analytics_plugin_device_ed93120e-0f50-3cdf-39c8-dd52a640688c_effective_settings.json

Substitute settings

You can force the Media Server to send specific settings to your plugin for testing.

1. In vms_server_plugins.ini, set the analyticsSettingsSubstitutePath option to your custom settings directory:

   analyticsSettingsSubstitutePath=substitute/settings

2. Add your custom settings JSON files to this directory.

3. Name the files using the captured settings naming scheme, but remove the _effective string from the filename.

4. Edit the JSON files to specify your test values.

5. Restart the Media Server.

Example settings JSON structure

Settings files must contain an array of key-value JSON objects:

[
  { "name": "testCheckBox", "value": "true" },
  { "name": "testComboBox", "value": "value2" },
  { "name": "testDoubleSpinBox", "value": "3.1415" },
  { "name": "testSpinBox", "value": "42" },
  { "name": "text", "value": "a text" }
]

Best practices for settings management

• Use a shared or parallel folder structure: Because substitute settings filenames mirror captured filenames (minus _effective), you can quickly copy a captured settings file, delete _effective from its name, edit the values, and move it to your substitution folder.

• Understand captured output during substitution: If you enable both capturing and substituting for settings, captured files (containing _effective) reflect the substituted values being delivered to the plugin, matching active server input.