#849 python binding pip installation with external plugins?

[Melançon Guy]

The pip installation of the tulip python binding works just great (Thanks Antoine!).

The thing is if you want to run plugins that are not part of the bundled release (those you would install by going to the plugins center when using the GUI).

Is there an easy way to use the pip installed binding and still have access to those plugins? Or should I simply rely on the use of the usual PYTHONPATH env variable?

[Antoine Lambert]

Hi Guy,

Unfortunately, C++ binary plugins bundled with (or downloaded from) the Tulip application are not compatible with the Tulip libraries provided with the Tulip-Python modules downloaded with pip. This is due to the fact that Tulip libraries installed through pip have been compiled with C++11 standard activated while those bundled with the Tulip application have not been compiled with it.

Nevertheless, you can still load and use the downloaded plugins from Python by using the Tulip-Python modules bundled with the Tulip application. Proceed as follow (assuming you are using Tulip 4.10 on MacOS):
1) Set the PYTHONPATH environment variable to /Applications/Tulip-4.10.0.app/Contents/lib/python
2) Add the following Python code at the top of the script file you want to execute

import os
from tulip import tlp

# directory where to find the downloaded plugins
localTulipPluginsDir = os.path.expanduser('~') + '/Library/Application Support/Tulip ' + tlp.getTulipRelease()[:-2] + '/plugins/'

# explicitely load the downloaded plugins as this is not handled by default by the tulip-core library 
tlp.loadTulipPluginsFromDir(localTulipPluginsDir)

For the next Tulip release, it has been decided to transfer a large majority of the testing plugins to the main Tulip repository. These plugins will be also available trough pip so you should not have to use that workaround anymore.

Hope that it will help,

Antoine