How can I use Plover as a library from an independent script?

[user202729]

(title.)

[user202729]

Some modules can be used directly (KeyboardCapture for example).

Some others (system-dependent) require using the registry to register some modules.

# make sure that Plover can be imported in the current Python environment
import plover

from plover.registry import registry
from plover import system
from plover.steno import Stroke

registry.update()

system.setup("English Stenotype")

print(Stroke({"S-", "T-"}))

Note: registry.update() loads all the currently-installed plugins, which might take a long time depends on which plugins are installed (even with the base Plover installation, it still takes 0.6s). An alternative is to do

import pkg_resources

registry.register_plugin_from_entrypoint("system",
		pkg_resources.EntryPoint.parse(
			'English Stenotype = plover.system.english_stenotype',
			dist=pkg_resources.EggInfoDistribution()
			)
		)

which only loads that plugin, which is significantly faster. (TODO figure out what EggInfoDistribution is)

[benoit-pierre]

We could make loading all the GUI Qt related plugins optional:

 plover/registry.py | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git i/plover/registry.py w/plover/registry.py
index f87308dd..594ad975 100644
--- i/plover/registry.py
+++ w/plover/registry.py
@@ -81,9 +81,10 @@ def list_plugins(self, plugin_type):
     def list_distributions(self):
         return [dist for dist_id, dist in sorted(self._distributions.items())]
 
-    def update(self):
+    def update(self, enable_gui_qt=True):
+        enable_gui_qt = enable_gui_qt and HAS_GUI_QT
         for plugin_type in self.PLUGIN_TYPES:
-            if plugin_type.startswith('gui.qt.') and not HAS_GUI_QT:
+            if plugin_type.startswith('gui.qt.') and not enable_gui_qt:
                 continue
             entrypoint_type = 'plover.%s' % plugin_type
             for entrypoint in pkg_resources.iter_entry_points(entrypoint_type):

▸ time python -c 'from plover.registry import registry; registry.update()'
0.45s user 0.03s system 99% cpu 0.483 total
▸ time python -c 'from plover.registry import registry; registry.update(enable_gui_qt=False)'
0.24s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 0.259 total

[benoit-pierre]

Or even better, you can pass an optional list of plugin types to restrict only loading those.

[benoit-pierre]

 plover/registry.py | 18 +++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git i/plover/registry.py w/plover/registry.py
index f87308dd..ed6e68ec 100644
--- i/plover/registry.py
+++ w/plover/registry.py
@@ -81,13 +81,21 @@ def list_plugins(self, plugin_type):
     def list_distributions(self):
         return [dist for dist_id, dist in sorted(self._distributions.items())]
 
-    def update(self):
-        for plugin_type in self.PLUGIN_TYPES:
-            if plugin_type.startswith('gui.qt.') and not HAS_GUI_QT:
-                continue
+    def update(self, only_plugin_types=None):
+        if only_plugin_types is None:
+            enable_gui_qt = HAS_GUI_QT
+            only_plugin_types = [
+                pt for pt in self.PLUGIN_TYPES
+                if not pt.startswith('gui.qt.') or enable_gui_qt
+            ]
+        else:
+            enable_gui_qt = any(pt.startswith('gui.qt.') for pt in only_plugin_types)
+            assert not (set(only_plugin_types) - set(self.PLUGIN_TYPES))
+            assert not enable_gui_qt or HAS_GUI_QT
+        for plugin_type in only_plugin_types:
             entrypoint_type = 'plover.%s' % plugin_type
             for entrypoint in pkg_resources.iter_entry_points(entrypoint_type):
-                if 'gui_qt' in entrypoint.extras and not HAS_GUI_QT:
+                if 'gui_qt' in entrypoint.extras and not enable_gui_qt:
                     continue
                 self.register_plugin_from_entrypoint(plugin_type, entrypoint)
             if PLUGINS_PLATFORM is not None:

[user202729]

The most general case would be to provide a blacklist lambda function. For example...

• registry.update(load_filter=lambda entrypoint, type: True) (loads all)
• registry.update(load_filter=lambda entrypoint, type: type in ("meta", "macro"))
• registry.update(load_filter=lambda entrypoint, type: "gui_qt." not in type)
• registry.update(load_filter=lambda entrypoint, type: is_plover_built_in_entry_point(entrypoint)) (how to check this?)

Sometimes most of the time is consumed by external installed plugins.