XNAT Developer Documentation

What's New for Developers in XNAT?

XNAT 1.8 builds and improves on the XNAT 1.7 development framework, but most of the code will be familiar to experienced developers. As always, there is a combination of old and new under the hood. For example, there are still Velocity templates for common report pages, but the new Admin UI is built in JSP using a YAML spec and the HTML Element Spawner service. 

As such, expect to find a lot of new content and controls in this section. 

Building a Dev Instance

There are multiple ways to stand up a packaged developer instance. Choose the one that is most convenient for you.

• Running XNAT in a Vagrant Virtual Machine
• Running XNAT in a Dockerized Container with Configurable Dependencies

XNAT Under The Hood

• XNAT Code Structure
• Using the XNAT Javascript API (JLAPI)
• Using the Form Element Spawner
• Multi-Node XNAT Considerations (The Node/Task Framework)
• Restricting Permissions on XAPI Calls with "restrictTo" Annotations

External XNAT Development 

External developers can contribute to XNAT in a number of ways: adding functions, services and data types via plugins; adding processing capabilities via pipelines; or adding connectors between their own applications and XNAT data. 

With the advent of a mature XNAT API, it is easier for external developers to create a free-standing UI using whatever technology they choose, and connect all functions of that front end to XNAT services using the API. It is even possible, using CORS, to connect that front end to a remote XNAT. 

Plugin Development Guide

Uploading Plugins and Tools to the XNAT Marketplace

Container Development Guide

Building Docker Images for Container Service

Pipeline Development Guide

Best Practices for Development

• Version Control
• XNAT Developer Tools