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.. Information on how to use plugins in Bazaar.
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A plugin is an external component for Bazaar that is typically made by
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third parties. A plugin is capable of augmenting Bazaar by adding new
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functionality. A plugin can also change current Bazaar behavior by
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replacing current functionality. Sample applications of plugins are:
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* providing additional network transports
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* customizing log output.
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The sky is the limit for the customization that can be done through plugins.
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In fact, plugins often work as a way for developers to test new features for
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Bazaar prior to inclusion in the official codebase. Plugins are helpful
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at feature retirement time as well, e.g. deprecated file formats may one
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day be removed from the Bazaar core and be made available as a plugin instead.
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Plugins are good for users, good for external developers and good for
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We keep our list of plugins on the http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/BzrPlugins page.
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How to install a plugin
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-----------------------
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Installing a plugin is very easy! If not already created, create a
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``plugins`` directory under your Bazaar configuration directory,
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``~/.bazaar/`` on Unix and
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``C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Bazaar\2.0\``
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on Windows. Within this directory (referred to as $BZR_HOME below),
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each plugin is placed in its own subdirectory.
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Plugins work particularly well with Bazaar branches. For example, to
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install the bzrtools plugins for your main user account on GNU/Linux,
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one can perform the following::
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bzr branch http://panoramicfeedback.com/opensource/bzr/bzrtools
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~/.bazaar/plugins/bzrtools
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When installing plugins, the directories that you install them in must
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be valid python identifiers. This means that they can only contain
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certain characters, notably they cannot contain hyphens (``-``). Rather
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than installing ``bzr-gtk`` to ``$BZR_HOME/plugins/bzr-gtk``, install it
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to ``$BZR_HOME/plugins/gtk``.
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Alternative plugin locations
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----------------------------
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If you have the necessary permissions, plugins can also be installed on a
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system-wide basis. One can additionally override the personal plugins
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location by setting the environment variable ``BZR_PLUGIN_PATH`` (see `User
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Reference <../user-reference/bzr_man.html#bzr-plugin-path>`_ for a detailed
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Listing the installed plugins
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-----------------------------
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To do this, use the plugins command like this::
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The name, location and version of each plugin installed will be displayed.
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New commands added by plugins can be seen by running ``bzr help commands``.
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The commands provided by a plugin are shown followed by the name of the
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Here is a sample of some of the more popular plugins.
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================ ================= ==================================
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Category Name Description
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================ ================= ==================================
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GUI QBzr Qt-based GUI tools
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GUI bzr-gtk GTK-based GUI tools
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GUI bzr-eclipse Eclipse integration
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General bzrtools misc. enhancements including shelf
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General difftools external diff tool helper
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General extmerge external merge tool helper
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Integration bzr-svn use Subversion as a repository
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Migration cvsps migrate CVS patch-sets
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================ ================= ==================================
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If you wish to write your own plugins, it is not difficult to do.
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See `Writing a plugin <writing a plugin.html>`_ in the appendices to get