Deploying your Plugin

There are a few different ways you can package your plugin to make it available to other users. Actual distribution of your plugin (e.g., posting a copy at forums.x-plane.org) is not covered here.

You should never distribute a copy of XPPython3. Please refer users to the Plugin Installation page on this website so they can get the latest version of software with full installation instructions. If they have problems installing XPPython3, refer them to me (pbuck@xppython3.org) or tell me what the issues are so I can improve the experience for everyone.

• Full source (described below)

• Compiled Python: Deploy *.pyc files instead of python source.

• Encrypted Python: Deploy *.xpyce files which require a key to decrypt.

• Shared Library: Deploy platform-specific shared library (i.e., compiled C code).

Full Source

Providing your plugin as python source is the simplest and most common way of distributing an XPPython3 plugin.

This should include a single file of the form PI_<my_fine_plugin>.py, where my_fine_plugin is a unique name for your plugin: there is no registry for plugin names. If you need to distribute additional files such as images, configuration, or extra python code, these should all be located under a single directory with the same name as your plugin, e.g. my_fine_plugin/.

This makes future updates easier as the user would only need to replace the PI*.py file and the single sub-directory. Similarly, by keeping all your extra files under the same directory, you’ll reduce the chance of naming conflicts.