General Information About Sikuli Extensions

This feature is currently under developement

Extensions allow to implement additional features to the SikuliX environment by adding packages to your current SikuliX installation.

Extensions are finally stored in the AppData area in the folder Extensions either manually or with support by SikuliX at start-up.

Additionally a file extensions.txt in this folder will be evaluated at startup. It may contain absolute filenames of extensions stored elsewhere on the system. It may also contain key-value-pairs for special purposes.

Currently defined and accepted:

• jython = <path-to>/jython.jar pointer to outside SikuliX installed Jython. If there, it takes precedence over the standard SikuliX Jython package.
• python = <path-to>/<python-executable> (experimental) allows to run scripts with the real Python interpreter (for details see)

Jar-files will be added to the Java classpath. For other filetypes there are special treatments to be implemented.

How to Download and use an Extension

The download of SikuliX extensions will be supported by the IDE through the menu Tools -> Extensions (under development).

But as mentioned above, you can use your own extensions.

How to Use an Extension

To use the features of an available extension in one of your scripts, it depends on waht API the extension offers:

Java API

import and access the Java stuff as defined for using Java in Jython scripts

Jython API

if the extension contains one or more Python modules, just use load("name-of-extension.jar") to make it available for later imports.

For information about features, usage and API use menu Tools -> Extensions -> More Info in the IDE.

How to develop an extension

The source structure of an extension named extension-name looks like this:

Java
- org/com
-- your-organization-or-company
--- extension-name
---- yourClass1.java
---- yourClass2.java
---- .... more classes
python
- extension-name
-- __init__.py
-- extension-name.py

The final structure of a JAR (filename extension-name-X.Y where X.Y is the version string) looks like this:

org/com
- your-organization-or-company
-- extension-name
--- yourClass1.class
--- yourClass2.class
--- .... more classes
extension-name
- __init__.py
- extension-name.py
META-INF
- MANIFEST.MF

The file __init__.py contains at least from extension-name import * to avoid one qualification level. So in a script you might either use:

load("extension-name.jar")
import extension-name
extension-name.functionXYZ()

or:

load("extension-name.jar")
from extension-name import *
functionXYZ()

The second case requires more investement in a naming convention, that avoids naming conflicts.

The file extension-name.py contains the classes and methods, that represent the API, that one might use in a Sikuli script.

Name your extensions properly

Sikuli extensions can be Python/Jython modules and/or Java classes.

For Java classes, following the reverse URL convention of Java is a good idea (for example, org.foo.your-extension). However, DO NOT use Java’s convention for Python/Jython modules. You need to come up with a unique extension name that does not conflict with existing Python modules and other Sikuli extensions.

Please read Naming Python Modules and Packages to learn the details for naming a Python module.