Plugin installation

Information on how to install Plugins

Plugin installation process

Craftbeerpi4 comes with very basic functionality but has the possibility to use plugins provided by the community. Therefore, it has a huge flexibility as Sensors, Actors Controllers, Recipe creation plugins but also Push Messages and Displays can be added to each users need (The user just needs to write his plugin or needs to find someone who is providing it).

There is currently no possibility to install plugins automatically via the integrated plugin page. All plugins need to be installed via the path described below. The plugin page does only show the installed plugins.

CraftbeerPi4 comes for instance with a Onewire temperature sensor, but some users prefer a PT100/PT1000 sensor. Therefore, a variety of plugins is already available and below is an example on how to install a PT100/PT1000 sensor plugin.

Some plugins have been made available via pypi.org and can be installed directly from there. Other plugins need to be installed directly from GitHub. The cbpi4-pt100X plugin is available on both platforms. Typically, the latest version is available on GitHub and will be released a bit later via pypi.org as package

Installation from pypi.org is quite simple. Just type the following command to install a plugin which is available on pypi.org:

pipx runpip cbpi4 install cbpi4-pt100x

The plugin and it's dependent packages will be installed on your system and cbpi will detect it automatically.

The other way to install the plugin is directly from GitHub:

pipx runpip cbpi4 install https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-pt100x/archive/main.zip

Also here, the plugin and the dependent packages will be installed automatically.

The command above will install the main branch of the cbpi4-pt100x github repo. The github page for this particular plugin is located at https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-pt100x and it has for instance two different branches: main and development. If you want to install the development branch, just replace main.zip with development.zip.

The same is true for other plugins you want to install from a repo. You just need to add /archive/BRANCH.zip behind the github http plugin address and substitute BRANCH with the name of the branch you want to install.

In some cases, installation of a plugin may show a warning if installed with pipx:

Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://www.piwheels.org/simple
Collecting cbpi4-iSpindle
Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/cbpi4-ispindle/cbpi4_iSpindle-0.0.13-py3-none-any.whl (17 kB)
WARNING: Error parsing dependencies of send2trash: Expected matching RIGHT_PARENTHESIS for LEFT_PARENTHESIS, after version specifier
sys-platform (=="darwin") ; extra == 'objc'
~^
Installing collected packages: cbpi4-ispindle
Successfully installed cbpi4-ispindle-0.0.13

This issue is not related to the plugin itself but to the system. It should have no effect on the installation process. However, you can avoid the warning by installing a newer version of send2trash in your virtual environment:

pipx runpip cbpi4 install send2trash==1.8.3

Advanced users have the possibility to run the commands within the virtual environment:

Enter the virtual environment:

source ~/.local/pipx/venvs/cbpi4/bin/activate

And install the plugin with:

python -m pip install cbpi4-pt100x

The other way to install the plugin is directly from GitHub:

python -m pip install https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-pt100x/archive/main.zip

Once this is completed, you need to leave the virtual environment with:

deactivate

Restart cbpi or reboot your server.

To get some detailed information about the plugin configuration and how to connect/install your sensor, you should have always a look at the plugin page on GitHub or pypi.org. I always try to add the most important information in the corresponding README.

For the cbpi4-pt100x plugin, you can find the information here on GitHub or you search for cbpi4-pt100x on the pypi.org site.

Please always remember, that plugins can also add global settings during the installation that need to be set in the settings page. One example is for instance the cbpi4-pushover Plugin which adds the parameters pushover__user and pushover__key to the global settings..

How to update a plugin?

If there is a new version of a plugin you can simply re-install the plugin or run an upgrade. Below is the example for the cbpi-pt100x plugin:

Re-Installation:

pipx runpip cbpi4 install --force https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-pt100x/archive/main.zip

Upgrade:

pipx runpip cbpi4 install --upgrade https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-pt100x/archive/main.zip

The update/upgrade or re-installation can be also done via pypi.org if the plugin has been published there via the plugin name as shown above.

How to remove a plugin?

If you want to remove a plugin you need to be careful. Before you remove the plugin from the server, you need to ensure that the plugin is not in use in any of your Hardware items and the dashboard as this may cause errors and can prevent the server from starting

To remove the plugin from the cbpi server, just type in case of the cbpi4-pt100x plugin:

pipx runpip cbpi4 uninstall cbpi4-pt100x

How to show the installed/active plugins?

If you want to see the active plugins, you have two possibilities. The first option is from the command line. Just type:

cbpi plugins

This will show you a list of the installed plugins incl. the version:

---------------------
Welcome to CBPi
---------------------

 List of active plugins

 Name                            Version    Author                             Homepage                                                     Summary
------------------------------  ---------  ---------------------------------  -----------------------------------------------------------  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
cbpi4-LCDisplay                 0.0.3      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-LCDisplay                 CraftBeerPi4 LCD Plugin Mod
cbpi4-PushOver                  0.0.3      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-PushOver                  CraftBeerPi4 Plugin to forward Notifications to Pushover Push Notifications
cbpi4-buzzer                    0.0.2      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-buzzer                    CraftBeerPi4 Buzzer Plugin
cbpi4ui                         0.2.0a4    Manuel Fritsch                     http://web.craftbeerpi.com                                   CraftBeerPi User Interface
cbpi4-pt100x                    0.1.1      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-pt100x                    CraftBeerPi4 PT100/PT1000 Sensor Plugin
cbpi4-BM-PID-SmartBoilWithPump  0.1.1      ['Alexander Vollkopf', 'Guy Lev']  https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-BM_PID_SmartBoilWithPump  CraftBeerPi4 PID Kettle Logic Plugin
cbpi4-iSpindle                  0.0.7      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-iSpindle                  CraftBeerPi4 iSpindle Sensor Plugin
cbpi4-PID-AutoTune              0.0.8      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-PIDAutoTune               CraftBeerPi4 Kettle Logic for PID Auto Tune
cbpi4-scd30-CO2-Sensor          0.0.3      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-scd30-co2-sensor          CraftBeerPi4 Plugin for SCD30 based CO2 Sensor
cbpi4-KettleSensor              0.0.5      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-KettleSensor              CraftBeerPi4 Plugin to add Sensor parameters for your Kettle and Fermenter
cbpi4-BLEHydrom                 0.0.4      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-BLEHydrom                 CraftBeerPi4 Plugin for Hydrom and Tilt (BLE connection)
cbpi4-system                    0.0.3      Alexander Vollkopf                 https://github.com/PiBrewing/cbpi4-system                    CraftBeerPi4 Plugin for system functions

The second option is directly from the user interface. Just click on the menu button on the top left and select Plugins. This will show this page which is still in development. However, you can see the active plugins and if the developer has added the corresponding information to his plugin, you can go directly to the corresponding webpage of the Plugin.

You can't install, activate or deactivate plugins on this page. It only shows the plugins you have installed and activated via command line.

Plugin List

The tables below shows the plugins that are currently available by type. At this point of time I cannot guarantee that the list is complete as I can only add the plugins to the list I am aware of.

Sensors

Name

Description

Link

cbpi4-pt100x

PT100/PT1000 Temp Sensor