napari-plugin-manager#

napari plugin manager to provide a graphical user interface for installing napari plugins.

You can read the documentation at napari.org/napari-plugin-manager.

Overview#

The napari-plugin-manager used to be part of the napari codebase before the 0.5.x release series. It’s now maintained as a separate project and package to allow uncoupled iterations outside of the napari release cycle.

Future work will allow other applications with a plugin ecosytem to customize and use the plugin-manager. This package remains under active development and contributions are very welcome. Please open an issue to discuss potential improvements.

This package currently provides:

A package installer process queue that supports both pip and conda installs.
An easy to use GUI for searching, installing, uninstalling and updating plugins that make part of the napari ecosystem. Each plugin entry provides a summary and information on the authors that created the package. The REST API used to query for plugins and plugin information is provided by the npe2api service.
The ability to install other packages via URL of by dragging and dropping artifacts from PyPI.

Screenshot of the napari-plugin-manager interface, showcasing the plugin descriptions

napari-plugin-manager knows how to detect if napari was installed using conda or pip and provide the appropriate default installer tool on the Installation Info dropdown for each plugin.

conda provides an efficient dependency solver that guarantees the stability and correctness of the napari installation and work environment. This is the reason why conda is the default tool used for the napari bundle, a 1-click installer available for Mac, Linux and Windows. This installation method is best if you mainly want to use napari as a standalone GUI app. However, certain plugins may not be supported.

Installation#

PyPI#

napari-plugin-manager is available through the Python Package Index and can be installed using pip.

pip install napari-plugin-manager

Conda#

napari-plugin-manager is also available for install using conda through the conda-forge channel.

conda install napari-plugin-manager -c conda-forge

Using the napari plugin manager#

Enabling/Disabling plugins#

Installed plugins found on the current napari installation are displayed on the top list of the UI.

Users of napari can choose to enable/disable a specific plugin by checking/unchecking the checkbox to the left of each plugin item in the list.

Filtering#

You can filter available plugins by name or description by typing on the search box on the top left corner of the UI. Only plugins that match the filter criteria will be shown.

In the image below filtering by the word arcos yields a single plugin, the arcos-gui plugin. Notice that plugins that provide a display name, will show the package name to the right in parenthesis.

Screenshot of the napari-plugin-manager interface showcasing the filtering features with the query 'arcos'

Refreshing#

If a new plugin has been released but it is not available on the list, you can click on the Refresh button located at the top right corner, to clear the cache and load all newly available plugins.

Installing a plugin#

To install a plugin:

Select it by scrolling the available plugins list on the bottom, or by directly filtering by name or description.
Select the tool (conda or pip) and version on the Installation Info dropdown.
Start the installation process by clicking on the Install button.

You can cancel the process at any time by clicking the Cancel button of each plugin.

Note: Not all napari plugins are currently available on conda via the conda-forge channel. Some plugins will require a restart to be properly configured.

Screenshot of the napari-plugin-manager showing the process of installing a plugin

Uninstalling a plugin#

To uninstall a plugin:

Select it by scrolling the installed plugins list on the top, or by directly filtering by name or description.
Start the removal process by clicking on the Uninstall button.

You can cancel the process at any time by clicking the Cancel button of each plugin.

Note: Some plugins will require a restart to be properly removed.

Screenshot of the napari-plugin-manager showing the process of uninstalling a plugin

Updating a plugin#

When a new version of an installed plugin is available, an Update (vX.Y.Z) button will appear to the left of the Installation Info dropdown.

To update a plugin:

Select it by scrolling the install plugins list on the top, or by directly filtering by name or description.
Start the update process by clicking on the Update (vX.Y.Z) button.

You can cancel the process at any time by clicking the Cancel button of each plugin.

Screenshot of the napari-plugin-manager showing the process of updating a plugin

Batch actions#

You don’t need wait for one action to finish before you can start another one. You can add more tasks to the queue (install/uninstall/update) by clicking on the corresponding action buttons plugin by plugin. The actions will be carried out sequentially and in the order in which you started them.

You can cancel all the started installer actions at any time by clicking Cancel all button at the bottom of the UI.

Troubleshooting#

In order to visualize more detailed information on the installer process output, you can click on the Show status button located at the bottom left corner of the UI. To hide this detailed information you can click on the Hide status button.

Some issues that you might experience when using the installer include:

Incompatible packages due to conflicting dependencies.
Network connectivity errors.

Screenshot of the napari-plugin-manager interface showcasing the status information, which is initially hidden by default.

License#

Distributed under the terms of the BSD-3 license, “napari-plugin-manager” is free and open source software.

Issues#

If you encounter any problems, please file an issue along with a detailed description.