How to install and use Album - a tool for decentralized software use case sharing

Deborah Schmidt

Head of Helmholtz Imaging Support Unit

Sep 25, 2024

Slides available at https://ida-mdc.github.io/workshop-visualization/tutorial-album-user/

Why does Album exist?

How does it work?

Solutions can wrap different tools and libraries. They can be bundled in catalogs and shared with users who don’t have any coding experience. — Solutions can wrap different tools and libraries. They can be bundled in catalogs and shared with users who don’t have any coding experience.

Album exists as command line and graphical user interface. Each solution is executed in it’s own virtual environment. Catalogs are git repositories and can be hosted locally or i.e. on gitlab or github. — Album exists as command line and graphical user interface. Each solution is executed in it’s own virtual environment. Catalogs are git repositories and can be hosted locally or i.e. on gitlab or github.

How to install

https://docs.album.solutions

via single executable installer (includes graphical user interface)
via pip (command line interface): pip install album
via conda or micromamba (command line interface): conda install album -c conda-forge

How to run Album solutions

Click Catalogs > Add Catalog > CATALOG_URL
Scroll to solution / use search bar
Select the solution and press Run

album add-catalog CATALOG_URL
album index
album install GROUP:NAME:VERSION
album info GROUP:NAME:VERSION
album run GROUP:NAME:VERSION

Updating a catalog

Update your local indices of catalogs to use newly added solutions:

Command line

# update all catalogs
album upgrade

# update a specific catalog
album upgrade MY_CATALOG_NAME

Graphical User Interface

Community

Go to https://album.solutions for more information about how to use Album.
The source code is available on https://gitlab.com/album-app/album.

Album developers:

Jan Philipp Albrecht

Deborah Schmidt

Kyle Harrington

Lucas Rieckert

Maximilian Otto