Introducing Components

The difference between the tools component and the modules component

The tools component is a sub-component of the File component, therefore it can only accept one input file. For correlation analyses between metabolites and bacterial communities, where both metabolite abundance and bacterial community abundance are required, the tools component cannot meet this need. The modules component, on the other hand, can accept multiple files as input.

Feature	Modules/Software	Tools/Script
Input Files	Multiple types and multiple files	Single type, multiple files
Output Files	May have multiple output files (analysis results)	Usually no output files
Examples	Metabolite ↔ Microbiome abundance correlation analysis; upstream Nextflow analysis (e.g., alignment)	Differential expression analysis (based on count files)
Functional Characteristics	Cross-type integrative analysis / Upstream–downstream linkage	Single-type in-depth analysis
Data Structure	Has both input and output children	Has only input children
Hierarchy	Top-level or standalone analysis node	Downstream node of a file

The Modules component uses the generated form JSON defined in the file component by default. If you need to customize it, you can add the following form JSON to the Modules component to override the form JSON of the file component.

{
    "reInputFile":[
      {
      "name": "count",
      "label": "count",
      "db": true,
      "component_id": "96a34143-2cde-4c34-813f-e0c88454cd78",
      "columns": [
        "group1",
        "group2"
      ],
      "rules": [
        {
          "required": true,
          "message": "This field cannot be empty!"
        }
      ],
      "col":24,
      "type": "CollectedGroupSelectSampleButton",
      "group": "group_field"
    }
  ]
}