Introducing the hub

To run our first example script, we told the TUI hub run "examples/wiki/first.pf". That is we ran the script by telling the hub to run the script for us.

The hub is a Pipefish service which is always running inside the TUI and manages other Pipefish services: it can start them, stop them, and supplies you with a lot of useful tooling: too much, in fact, to cover in this introductory article. To get you started here are some of the more essential commands.

• hub run (filename string)

As we've seen, this will initialize a service from the given script, and will give it a suitable name. If you want to name the service yourself, use hub run "<filename>" as "<service name>".

You can have more than one service running at a time. If, having run our first service, we now wish to run a second, we could for example do this:

This brings us on to the next useful hub command.

• hub services

This lists all the services the hub is currently running.

• hub switch (servicename string)

hub switch "<service name>" changes the current service, i.e. you're talking to through the TUI. As you'll have noticed, the name of the current service shows up in the prompt.

• hub halt (servicename string)

This halts the named service.

• hub api

This gives the API of the current service.

• hub quit

This shuts down the hub and the TUI, but remembers every service you had running at shutdown, and starts them up again when you restart the TUI.