I observed two cases, where the installation of a plugin via extension manager failed. The files were downloaded and placed in the extensions/plugins directory, but then failed to load, throwing an error message.

This may well happen and the extension manager is perhaps not to blame for that.

But here is where the bug comes. The extension manager does not list the installed files under local storage, thus there is no possibility to deactivate/delete them. However, the files are still there and cause error messages on each program startup. The only way to get rid of the problem is to manually remove the files from the extension dir.

Edited by user 23 March 2014 16:19:47(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

You can't use the old plug-ins with the regions. Therefore, a simple copy of the old version will fail. Do not use this way for old such plugins. As I said, they need to be recompiled with a small addition. New plugins can be copied. Do not use the plug-ins from my ftp, they are all old. Plugin Manager is not completed yet, Andrey is working on it. In any case, if there is a problem, try to remove all user's plugins manually from ..\SMath\plugins and ..\AppData\[username]\SMath\extensions\plugins, then install them from the gallery.

As for me, everything works fine:

Edited by user 08 June 2013 13:16:14(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

We are still thinking about it. ZedGraph has too many parameters and we have not come up with a simple way to save them to a file. It should be transparent to the programmer. In addition, we are thinking about how to make a dynamic display properties of the graph depending on the experience level (convenience).

Uni, thanks for the answer. I can just envy you and Radovan the neat work of the plugins in the new SMath version. I am using the portable version of 4902 for testing. I just now removed the complete extensions folder (residing just besides the portable exe) and re-installed everything from the extensions manager. Thus, no manual file copying.

What fails to install (and needs to be removed manually for clean program start)

3D plot region
XY-Plot
Zedgraph region

What installs successfully (without function check, just loading)

alglib
checkbox
combobox
customFunctions
imageregion
MapleWrapper (with the files being installed in subdirs of extensions/plugin and also in extensions/plugin directly)
Statistical tools

But never mind, I anyways do not use 4902 for productive work due to the ; arg delimiter bug.

Still, the topic was not on failed plugin installation but on how to handle that in the extension manager.

As to the settings of graphs: How about having a hardwired default set of settings and just saving the changed ones? Hardly any one is going to touch everything, and if so, he has good reasons for that and has to accept larger file size.

Similarly, you could allow the user to have own defaults, which then would need to be included in every file that uses corresponding plots (sort of 3 level settings, 1. built in, 2. user defaults, 3. per plot settings. You could add a per document setting level, just to effectively reformat all plots of a sheet.

That implies, of course, that there is generic way to handle read and write of individual settings without the need to code them individually.


Gnuplot scripts are generally just some lines of text. If you save the plot from the gui or from the command line, then you get hundreds of settings. The trace specification, however, is still very compact and smart.

Martin, I don't get it sorry. Does it mean that this is the third place where the extension folder resists, and it is reserved for the *.tar,mono version?
It seems I made a mess because I did not see that extension folder. Maybe because I tried to use them both on the same computer.

Regards,
Radovan

I still think that your portable version including the plugins is still a very good solution. An official version with plugins and extensions to be installed from the Net upon request is one thing, but having the portable version is more convenient and it should not be obsolete IMHO. I do not understand why the extension was removed in the Apps folder. Why it is not inside the installation folder as the "plugin" folder is (not quite sure about it). To make long story short, the portable version including the plugins is quite useful and should not be canceled. Just a simple explanation for that. It is easier for me to make a portable version with included the chosen plugins and distribute to my students. Than I will not care about what they should install afterwards, the Net connections, proxies etc. Actually, If I can make a portable version using the official one, or using the tar, mono version, or using your unofficial one, every solution will be Ok with me.

Regards,
Radovan

Edited by user 08 June 2013 14:36:32(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hmm..., I think w3b5urf3r_reloaded (Davide Carpi) did not recompile it yet, and this must have been the old one. I do not see it in the Extension Manager. I might be wrong of course.

Regards,
Radovan

Correct GUID must be set for every plugin in Assembly Info to make it possible to work with Extensions Manager.

Regards.