About requirements¶

The Python packaging system has an established mechanism for specifying dependencies, i.e. other Python packages that are required to run your package.

Lino uses this system. When you distribute a Lino application or plugin library, you specify required packages in your setup_info.py file.

But what it a third-party Python package is required only under certain conditions? Plugins can have quite sophisticated logic to decide which packages they require. For example, a production site needs atelier only if it actually generates local help pages, i.e. when the application uses the lino.modlib.help plugin and help.make_help_pages is set to True.

That’s why we have the lino.core.plugin.Plugin.get_requirements() method.

Keep in mind that packages specified using get_requirements() will get installed only in a second step. So when you import them from your plugin, you need to wrap them into a try ... except ImportError.