Hosting projects

Make your plugin even more useful by exposing remote projects directly from the ManiVault Studio start page.

A preview of what the user will experience when remote projects are configured correctly.

Purpose

This guide explains how plugin developers can make their ManiVault Studio projects available remotely. These projects will show up on the ManiVault Studio start page, making them easily discoverable and instantly accessible by users.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Upload Your Project(s)

Host your .mv project files on a publicly accessible web server. These could be on:

an institutional server,
a file hosting service,
or any location ManiVault Studio can reach via HTTPS.

2. Create a Project Metadata JSON

Prepare a JSON file describing the projects you uploaded. This file must conform to the rules of the projects JSON schema.

Each entry describes one project:

Name	Required	Notes
`title`	✅
`uuid`	✅	This is neceassary to reference the project unambiguously, you should generate one yourself with a UUID generator.
`ignore`		Do not list the project when this option is `true`
`group`		The group to which this project belongs (the project will be accessible by expanding this group in the GUI).
`startup`		Flags the project as a startup project (for future use)
`url`	✅	Provide a (direct download link)
`summary`	✅	HTML formatting is allowed.
`requiredPlugins`	✅	If any plugin is not available on the user end, the project will not be listed, see the Caveats and notes section for more info.
`coreVersion`	✅	For more info, see the example.
`tags`	✅
`date`	✅
`downloadSize`		Set this value if the download size cannot be established automatically by ManiVault (in case of URLs with redirects).
`hardwareRequirements`		Minimum and recommended hardware requirements for loading the project.

For example:

[
  {
    "title": "Example Project",
    "uuid": "b730760f-b494-4d99-b584-419a64ccb2d5",
    "url": "https://example.com/myproject.zip",
    "summary": "<p>Demo for my plugin</p>",
    "requiredPlugins": [
      { "name": "MyPlugin", "repoName": "MyPluginRepo", "version": "1.0" }
    ],
    "coreVersion": { "major": 1, "minor": 0, "patch": 0, "suffix": "" },
    "tags": ["Demo", "MyPlugin"],
    "date": "2025-06-16 13:00:00"
  }
]

You can find ManiVault Studio JSON schemas here.

3. Upload the JSON File

Once your JSON is ready:

Upload it to the same (or another) accessible web location.
Ensure it’s reachable via a direct HTTP/HTTPS URL.

4. Register the JSON URL in Your Plugin

In your plugin factory (either in mv::PluginFactory::PluginFactory() or mv::PluginFactory::initialize()), register the JSON’s URL with:

mv::PluginFactory::getProjectsDsnsAction().addString("https://example.com/my_plugin_projects.json");

Summary: Registering Remote Projects in ManiVault Studio

Step	Action
1	Upload your project files somewhere downloadable
2	Create a projects JSON metadata file conforming to the projects schema
3	Host the projects JSON file online
4	Register the projects JSON file in your plugin via `mv::PluginFactory::getProjectsDsnsAction().addString("https://example.com/projects.json")`
5	Users will see the project(s) on the start page and can click to download + open

What Happens in ManiVault Studio

When everything is set up:

The remote projects you defined will appear under the Projects section of the start page, clearly labeled and searchable.
Users can filter remote projects based on name, version, and tags.
A single click on a listed project:
- Downloads the .mv file from the URL (if already downloaded, the user decides whether to open the downloaded file or download again).
- Opens the project in ManiVault Studio automatically.

The user doesn’t need to know or care that the project was remote—it’s seamless, see the teaser GIF at the top of this page for a preview of the experience.

Caveats & Notes

All downloadable files (projects JSON file and the project .mv files) must be a direct download link: The URLs must point directly to the raw file. Avoid links that:

Require user login.
Redirect to a download confirmation page; this is not guaranteed to work (e.g. OSF, Google Drive, and Dropbox UI pages).
Ensure HTTPS download is enabled (HTTP is not allowed).
Test everything: Always test your setup in a clean ManiVault Studio environment before sharing with users.
Latency or failure fallback: If a project fails to download or is offline, it will not be shown. Ensure your hosting is reliable.

Make sure:

To check the name of the required plugins; the name should be the same as the plugin JSON file. If they are not, the project will not be listed on the start page projects section.
That the projects JSON file adheres to the projects JSON schema. If your projects do not appear on the start page, check the ManiVault Studio console output; it will give hints where the problem is located