Extension requirements

Setting Up Effects in Inkscape

For effects to work you need to be using inkscape .42 or later.
For info about what effects can do, screenshots, and how to make your own go to Aarons Site
See also GettingExtensionsWorking.

Unhide the Effects menu

(Only necessary in some versions of Inkscape. Between .41 and .45)

On the "Misc" tab of the "Inkscape Preferences" dialog check the box labeled "Enable script effects" (0.41+CVS onwards only)

Close and reopen Inkscape

Python Effects

on Debian GNU / Linux

   apt-get install python python-xml

on Microsoft Windows

GettingEffectsWorking/Windows Tutorial on Getting Effects to work on Windows

on Mac OS X

Mac OS X ships with python but without some packages that Inkscape uses: pyXML (which will be suppressed in version 0.46), numpy and lxml. In version 0.46, Inkscape will ship with everything that's needed right into the app bundle.

Binary packages

Following steps work on Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.2) with Inkscape 0.45+devel

• Download http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/Python-packages.dmg
• Copy the files in the 2.5 folder to /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/

On OS X Panther or Tiger, you can install a binary version compiled by us with Python 2.3, downloadable with the development builds of Inkscape:

http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/?M=D

You need to copy the folders for numpy (numpy) and lxml (*lxml*.egg or lxml) to System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/site-packages (there is a link in the dmg on which the folders can be dropped).

Compiling from source

If you prefer, you can install them from source, it is really easy.

1. download the source code from sourceforge numpy repository or lxml download section
2. unpack the .tar.gz file

   tar -xzf numpy***.tar.gz lxml***.tar.gz

3. for each one cd into the newly created directory
4. build C extensions and install (the install is system wide so you need administrator priviledges)

   sudo python setup.py install

   and type your password.

The packages are installed in the site-packages directory of your Python install. This is /Library/Python/2.*/site-packages/ for the stock install of Python on Mac OS X.

Perl Effects

on Debian GNU / Linux

   apt-get install perl libxml-xql-perl

on Gentoo GNU / Linux

   emerge -a XML-XQL

on Microsoft Windows

   install ActivePerl
   install XML::XQL::DOM (perhaps like this?)
       1: install prereqs with ppm:
	    install xml-dom
	    install parse-yapp
	    install datemanip
       2: download xml-xql from:
	    http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/T/TJ/TJMATHER/XML-XQL-0.68.tar.gz
       3: open command prompt and locate perl"s lib directory with:
	    perl -e "print qq(@INC)"    (mine was C:/Perl/site/lib)
       4: unpack xml-xql archive
       5: copy contents of XML-XQL-*\lib\XML into C:\Perl\site\lib\XML
       6: copy XML-XQL-*\XQLParser\Parser.pm to C:\Perl\site\lib\XML\XQL

Plugin Effects

I have absolutely no idea. Please record your success here. :)

What if it doesn't work?

Run Inkscape from the console

Use the error messges printed to the console to diagnose the problem (very often missing dependencies)

On Windows you will have to redirect output to a text file like this: "inkscape > output.txt"