2.8. Plugin Manager

Any new hardware has to be included in PyMoDAQ within a plugin. A PyMoDAQ’s plugin is a python package containing several added functionalities such as instruments objects. A instrument object is a class inheriting from either a DAQ_Move_base or a DAQ_Viewer_base class and implements mandatory methods for easy and quick inclusion of the instrument within the PyMoDAQ control modules.

The complete list of available Instrument Plugins is maintained on this GitHub repository.

While you can install them manually (for instance using pip install plugin_name), from PyMoDAQ 2.2.2 a plugin manager is available. You can open it from the Dashboard in the help section or directly using the command line: python -m pymodaq_plugin_manager.manager or directly plugin_manager

This will open the Plugin Manager User Interface as shown on figure Fig. 2.79 listing the available plugins packages that can be either installed, updated or removed. It includes a description of the content of each package and the instruments it interfaces. For instance, on figure Fig. 2.79, the selected Andor plugin package is selected and includes two plugins: a Viewer1D to interface Andor Shamrock spectrometers and a Viewer2D to interface Andor CCD camera.