Re: [matplotlib-devel] more on plugins/toolbar

[Abraham S. <ab...@cn...>]

Fernando Perez wrote:

>
>
> 1. I think plugin support is a fantastic idea, but I hope it can be 
> made user-extensible in local paths.  I recently modified mayavi 
> (available in current CVS) precisely in this manner, and I think it's 
> a very useful thing. In lab settings where users are not allowed to 
> write to system directories, it becomes very important that they can 
> add their own plugins in local paths. This also allows you to keep 
> your personal extensions alive as matplotlib versions are upgraded, 
> since your directories are untouched.
>
> What I did for mayavi was to add a search-path option to mayavi, made 
> of colon-separated dirs with ~user/$VAR support.  Any such dir gets 
> added to mayavi's search path for user-defined filters and modules 
> (the equivalent of plugins), and you can load a user module just like 
> you can load a builtin:
>
> load_module('Glyphs') -> loads mayavi's Glyphs module
> load_module('User.Glyphs') -> loads a user-defined Glyphs module from 
> the search path.
>
> I think it's important that it's a _path_ and not a single directory, 
> because this allows a research group to maintain shared extensions 
> suited for their purposes, and individual users to add personal 
> modifications which don't fit group projects.

I completely agree. I recently changed the code to allow a path to be 
specified (':' deliminated). I hadn't thought of allowing '$VAR' syntax 
.. something to think about. However, if people have a .matplotlibrc 
file in their home directory, it should make it so people aren't mucking 
up things with the plugins.. I'll have to check the behavior of 
find_module to see what it does with '~' and such.

I like the idea of 'load_module'. Currently all the plugins in the 
directories are loaded automatically. There is a certain nicety, though, 
to automatically having it load all the plugins found in a particular 
directory. Less cumbersome for most users.

Abe