A metainformation block sets visual parameters of the workflow and aliases for running it from the command line.

Each block starts with .meta keyword and consists of the aliases and visual blocks:

.meta {
    aliases {
        # The workflow aliases
    }
    visual {
        # Visual data for element1
        # Visual data for element2
        # ...
    }
}

Parameter Aliases

The block starts with the parameter-aliases keyword and has the following format:

parameter-aliases {
    element_name.parameter_name:value;
    ...
}

The value specified for an element parameter is used as the alias for this parameter when the workflow is executed from the command line.

See an example of setting workflow aliases:

.meta {
    parameter-aliases {
        read-msa.url-in:in;
        write-msa.url-out:out;
    }
    ...
}

Visual

The block starts with the visual keyword. It describes the appearance of the workflow in a Workflow Designer window, i.e. appearance of the workflow elements and connections:

visual {

    # Elements appearance
    element_name1 {
        element_appearance_parameter1:value1;
        element_appearance_parameter2:value2;
        ...
    }
    element_name2 {
        ...
    }
    ...


    # Connections appearance
    element1_name.port1_name->element2_name.port2_name {
        connection_appearance_parameter1:value3;
        ...
    }
    ...
}

To describe an element appearance the following parameters are used:

For now, the only parameter that describes a connection appearance is:

For example:

visual {
    read-sequence {
        description:"";
        tooltip:"Reads sequences and annotations ...";
        pos:"-930 -885";
        style:ext;
        bg-color-ext:"0 128 128 64";
        bounds:"-30 -30 45 103";
        out-sequence.angle:272.309;
    }
    write-sequence {
        ...
    }
    read-sequence.out-sequence->write-sequence.in-sequence {
        text-pos:"-27.5 -24";
    }