Re: Plugins for Kicad and other programs

[Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il>]

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On Sun, Oct 03, 2021 at 11:31:40AM +0000, phodina via wrote:
> Hi Guix,
> 
> Lots of programs now allow users to extend their features through plugins.
> On non Guix distros where the user does not have the root priviledges they place
> the the content of their plugin in the configuration directory in home directory.
> 
> Here's example for Kicad:
> ~/.kicad_plugins/
> ~/.kicad/scripting/
> ~/.kicad/scripting/plugins/
> 
> To further complicate things they can have their own plugin manager (e.g. Freecad).
> 
> In some cases they contain just some raw data or configs. However, large amount has
> some code embedded like shell scripts, python which needs special handling on Guix.
> 
> Therefore my question is how to integrate them?
> 
> What I propose is with the merge of home services [2], there is now possibility to:
> 
> - create package defintion of the plugin
> - create home service that will link the plugin into the correct location
> within the home dir
> 
> There is also an alternative.
> I searched the Kicad forum for plugin installation and installation into system dirs
> (under /usr) is not recommended [2]. The plugin could be linked into the plugin
> location under the /gnu/store/xxx-package. This could be done by inheriting kicad
> package and adding the plugins to the input. That approach wouldn't be very flexible,
> as it would create to many package combinations.
> 
> Also I never installed plugins into system directories on distibutions used before
> Guix system so I don't know if it would work.
> 
> [1] commit 6ae4644984608b7eff7ab54d3a5787c661d85b2e
> [2] https://forum.kicad.info/t/plugin-location-ubuntu-refresh-solved/24396

Following down that thread, I came across this other bit too:

Can you follow the instruction in the document you linked to:

    Open Tools -> Scripting Console in pcbnew
    type import pcbnew; print pcbnew.PLUGIN_DIRECTORIES_SEARCH

What does it tell?
v3xX
Aug 2020

    /usr/share/kicad/scripting
    /usr/share/kicad/scripting/plugins
    /home//.config/kicad/scripting
    /home//.config/kicad/scripting/plugins
    /home//.kicad_plugins
    /home//.kicad/scripting
    /home//.kicad/scripting/plugins

it looks like it should search in this folders.

so it looks like kicad could have a search-path of 'share/kicad' or
'share/kicad/scripting' and the plugins installed to
%out/share/kicad/scripting for each plugin.

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Efraim Flashner   <efraim@flashner.co.il>   רנשלפ םירפא
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