Add-on installation tutorial
This tutorial describes the usual steps for activating an Plone add on product.
Installation instructions
These are generic installation instructions. Every package should ship with its own instructions.
- If the add-on doesn't provide sufficient instructions or the instructions have issues then please contact the add-on author listed on plone.org page to provide specific instructions for the add-on.
- If it looks like it is still no-go contact plone.org maintainers on support chat, issue tracker or mailing lists in order to take down add-ons causing issues to community members
Prerequisitements
In order to install add-ons you need to be able to use the command-line prompt of your operating system. This is Terminal applcation on UNIX and Command Line utility on Windows.
You need to
- Navigate in folders
- Edit text files
- Read textual log files
Installation process
You have found a great Plone add-on and you want to install it.
Find add-on package name. It's a dotted name, usually something like collective.name or Products.foobar. You can check and search package names in PyPi.
Add this package name to eggs section in buildout.cfg using a text editor.
Run buildout to download and install new packages. There are two ways to run buildout, depending no whether you want to update everything or not.
The safe method:
cd /your/plone/installation/folder bin/buildout -N # does not update all packages
The development method:
bin/buildout # Updated EVERY package installed on your system and may potentially break your site
On Windows you do cd c:\plone41 and bin\buildout.exe.
Note
On old and unmaintaned add-ons you might need to include the package name in zcml section of buildout as well.
Note
Sometimes buildout gives SyntaxError error during the run. Ignore these, it's a bug in Python installer.
If buildout completed succesfully (no version conflict errors. etc) Start Plone on the foreground debug mode:
bin/instance fg
On Windows the command is bin\instance.exe fg.
See that Plone starts succesfully and you see this line:
2011-09-03 18:48:57 INFO Zope Ready to handle requests
Because one Zope application server can hold any number of Plone sites you still need to activate the add-on on your site. Go to Plone control panel using Site setup link visible to the admin users. There you need to install the add-on for your site.
Note
Some developer oriented add-ons might affect all Plone sites in your Zope application server and might lack this step.
See it works.
Stop running Plone in foreground mode by pressing CTRL+C and start Plone normally.
Solving issues
And now… if some of these steps failed go to
- Add-on installation fail how to.
- Please read guidelines for asking help with Plone, especially the techical bits, so that you have the necessary technical information available beforehand
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