Plugins

Plugin file structure

Most features can be self-contained in their own .py file, so that the feature is enabled or disabled by import-ing that .py file or not. A plugin is usually a single .py file, installed on the same computer as visidata. Instructions on how to install a plugin

Plugins often start as a small snippet in .visidatarc, and then the code is migrated to a separate file when it gets too large to share with other people via a short code snippet. The actual code in either case should be identical.

Note

To quickly install a personal plugin, place the plugin in the $HOME/.visidata/plugins/ directory, and add an import statement to $HOME/.visidata/plugins/__init__.py. At startup, VisiData will automatically import this plugins package and all the included plugins.

To publish a plugin, create a public repo with a .py file. To package it within VisiData, open a PR on the VisiData repo, placing the code in the the experimental folder.

Complete “Hello world” plugin example

hello.py

'''This plugin adds the ``hello-world`` command to all sheets.
Press ``0`` to show display options.disp_hello on the status line.'''

__author__ = 'Jo Baz <jobaz@example.com>'

vd.option('disp_hello', 'Hello world!', 'string to display for hello-world command')

BaseSheet.addCommand('0', 'hello-world', 'status(options.disp_hello)')

Notes:

  • There should be a searchable docstring description of the core features.

  • Optionally include author metadata.

  • Options at the top, commands at the bottom.

  • Avoid toplevel imports of non-stdlib Python extensions.