inkscape/share/extensions

Inkscape Extensions

This folder contains the stock Inkscape extensions, i.e. the scripts that implement some commands that you can use from within Inkscape. Most of these commands are in the Extensions menu.

It also contains the Python package inkex which powers the Inkscape extensions. The package has a separate readme here.

This readme concerns the development of the core extensions and inkex itself.

Installation

These scripts should be installed with an Inkscape package already (if you have installed Inkscape). For packagers or people testing newer releases, you can install the files into /usr/share/inkscape/extensions or ~/.config/inkscape/extensions .

Testing

These extensions are designed to have good test coverage for Python 3.8 and above.

You must install the program pytest in order to run these tests. You may run all tests by omitting any other parameters or select tests by adding the test filename that you want to run.

pytest
pytest tests/test_my_extension.py

See TESTING.md for further details.

Extension description

Each *.inx file describes an extension, listing its name, purpose, prerequisites, location within the menu, etc. These files are read by Inkscape on launch. Other files are the scripts themselves (Perl, Python, and Ruby are supported, as well as shell scripts).

Development

Development of both the core inkex modules, tests and each of the extensions contained within the core inkscape extensions repository should follow these basic rules of quality assurance:

• Use Python 3.8 or later, no Python 2 code would be used here.
• Use Black to ensure code is written consistantly.
• Write tests so that each line of an extension is covered in the coverage report.
• Do not cross streams between extensions, so your extension should import from a module and not from another extension.
• Use translations on text for display to users using get text.
• Do not introduce dependencies to external programs (with some exceptions).

Also join the community on Inkscape's RocketChat, specifically the #inkscape_extensions channel with any doubts or problems.

Building Docs

If you improve the documentation, you might like to compile it to check what it looks like. This section should get you set up.

1. Install Poetry and the dependencies.

   pip3 install poetry
   poetry install
   poetry run sphinx-apidoc -e -P -o docs/source/ inkex */deprecated.py
   

2. Build the documentation

   cd docs
   poetry run make html
   

3. Open the documentation in the build/html directory.

   firefox ../build/html/index.html
   

If that does not work, please have a look at the .gitlab-ci.yml and update this documentation!

All documentation should be included inside of each python module.

The latest documentation for master branch can be found here.

License Requirements

Only include extensions here which are GPL-compatible. This includes Apache-2.0, MPL-1.1, certain Creative Commons licenses, and more. See the GNU project's page Various Licenses and Comments about Them for guidance.