Kicad 5.1.2 can't find any plugin

spoontex · May 9, 2019, 7:18am

Hi,

I have Kicad 5.1.2 in ubuntu. When I go to External Plugins menu, they are empty…

Anybody can help me?

Thanks.

eelik · May 9, 2019, 7:28am

You have to install some python plugins first, so what have you done already?

EDIT: and what do you want to do, is there some specific thing?

spoontex · May 9, 2019, 7:31am

Of course,

I installed this plugin:

They say that I only need to copy the folder into /usr/share/kicad/plugins/

thanks.

eelik · May 9, 2019, 7:41am

That’s not a good place to copy plugins to. Use your home dir instead: ~/.kicad_plugins/. (That’s also said in the page you linked to.)

Create a directory for the plugin and copy the files there, for example ~/.kicad_plugins/teardrop/__init__.py etc.

Try to refresh plugins or restart KiCad if it doesn’t work.

spoontex · May 9, 2019, 7:46am

Solved!!

Many thanks.

eelik · May 9, 2019, 7:47am

BTW, as the author tells in Yet another Python teardrop script. Adds and deletes teardrops to a PCB. V0.3.3 the GUI works only with python 3, and you may have kicad version built with python 2. In that case you can use it only from the scripting console, text based.

Rene_Poschl · May 9, 2019, 8:00am

Ubuntu might already be on python 3 but i am not sure about that (I think the main platform still on python 2 is windows. I would assume linux already moved to python 3)

herostrat · May 9, 2019, 11:01am

You are right as the PPA of Reynaud with the 5.1 stable (which most ubuntu user wil use imho) is shipped with python3 as the standard.

Application: kicad
Version: 5.1.2-f72e74a~84~ubuntu19.04.1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1b zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh/0.8.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 5.0.0-13-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.67.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.64.0
Compiler: GCC 8.3.0 with C++ ABI 1013
Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON

John_Pateman · May 9, 2019, 11:53am

As far as major platforms is concerned, the current 5.1.2 install for macOS10.13 also still seems to be on Python 2

From the Python console:

Py 0.9.8
Python 2.7.13 (default, Apr 25 2019, 11:32:12)

Application: kicad
Version: (5.1.2-1)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.54.0 LibreSSL/2.0.20 zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.24.0
Platform: Mac OS X (Darwin 17.7.0 x86_64), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (UTF-8,STL containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.69.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.51.0
Compiler: Clang 8.0.0 with C++ ABI 1002
Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=ON
USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON

spoontex · May 9, 2019, 1:41pm

Okey,

sorry about that.

My disto is KDE Neon 5.15 and my Python vsrion is 2.7.15rc1. So, I can only use the script in console. But when I use in console I have this error:

python td.py HV400.kicad_pcb

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “td.py”, line 11, in
from pcbnew import VIA, ToMM, TRACK, FromMM, wxPoint, GetBoard, ZONE_CONTAINER
ImportError: No module named pcbnew

Any suggestion?

Thanks.

hermit · May 9, 2019, 2:10pm

Debian is usually slow moving. I have python 3 installed but you have to call it explicitly

hermit@~:which python
/usr/bin/python
hermit@~:which python3
/usr/bin/python3

John_Pateman · May 9, 2019, 2:27pm

When you say ‘in console’ do you mean the Kicad scripting console or a normal terminal? If you are in the Kicad console with Python2 you need to type
execfile(‘path/to/script’, [kwags]).
If you are in a ‘normal’ terminal, the system python will not have access to the Kicad site-packages. In this case you will need to do something like (depending on you Kicad site-packages location depending on OS)

sys.path.insert(0, "/Applications/Kicad/kicad.app/Contents/Frameworks/python/site-packages/")
import pcbnew

at the top of your script - before the import pcbnew statement.

qu1ck · May 9, 2019, 6:42pm

@John_Pateman They just said they are on linux and you are suggesting to insert osx path

@spoontex Just change your command to
python3 td.py HV400.kicad_pcb

Rene_Poschl · May 9, 2019, 6:44pm

He added a disclaimer about the fact that it is os dependent but probably did not know the correct path for any other system than mac.

spoontex · May 9, 2019, 7:03pm

First, sorry. I’m new into kicad.

the teardrop plugin load correctly, but it seems that the parameters don’t do anything.

I did it wrong or something.

John_Pateman · May 9, 2019, 9:00pm

Indeed - i didn’t fire up my Virtual Ubuntu box to check but I thought I had implied the gist.

Also I am interested - are the python site packages in Ubuntu in the system python path? They are not on macOS which causes difficulty.

qu1ck · May 9, 2019, 9:08pm

Yes, on linux system python is used and pcbnew is installed in system wide dist-packages.

Niluje · May 12, 2019, 9:37pm

Python2 and Python3 are now (hopefully) supported. Just check the version 2.4.4 of the plugin on my github repo (https://github.com/NilujePerchut/kicad_scripts). Tested on Ubuntu 18.04LTS(python3) and Ubuntu 16.04LTS(python2).
Let me know if this corrects the problem.

system · August 10, 2019, 9:37pm

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