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<TITLE>Plugin Troubles. Getting Started (SIP, PYQT, PYRCC confusions)</TITLE>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Hey folks, I want to create plugins for Q GIS and I am completely lost.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I am running python 25 on a windows box.</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I have cygwin mingw components installed under cygwin.</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Distutils pointing cygwin/mingw for compiling python extensions (</FONT></SPAN><A HREF="http://boodebr.org/main/python/build-windows-extensions#CFG_DISTUTILS"><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://boodebr.org/main/python/build-windows-extensions#CFG_DISTUTILS</FONT></U></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">)</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I have been going between a bunch of sites to try and figure out how to get started.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">The python stuff is no problem. I want to get the plugin into Qgis.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">My understanding is that I need to comppile some resources against pyrcc (</FONT></SPAN><A HREF="http://wiki.qgis.org/qgiswiki/DevelopingPluginsWithPython"><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://wiki.qgis.org/qgiswiki/DevelopingPluginsWithPython</FONT></U></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">)</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">So I try finding it in the qgis install and it is not there.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Next I learn that pyrcc is part of the QT stack. So I go to learn how to install pyQT stuff (</FONT></SPAN><A HREF="http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyQt"><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyQt</FONT></U></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">)</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I go to Pyqt4 site and get the packages. I can't find binaries so I try to build form source.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> Of course this leads me to SIP extensions, again that I need to build from source cause I can not find windows binaries.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Am I going in the right direction or have I missed the simple approach? I like simple.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">So now I am in cygwin trying to do</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Python Configure.py -p cygwin-g++; make; make install</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">For the SIP package. The build fails of course… I then try PyQt, which fails cause it is missing SIP dependencies. So do I need to start with the SIP mailing list, then the Pyqt mailing list and then finaly try a small "hello world" plugin. IMHO if this is what I need to do, this is a big barrier to potential plugin developers. With applications like OpenEV I need only create a python script and run it to make a GIS plugin.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I have not tried this on my linux box as it is proving to polute my winbox system. I like a lean linux box without all this overhead and compiling of binaries that will get hidden.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">WINDOWS BINARIES WOULD BE GREAT TO HAVE. Or maybe we just need less windows boxes...</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">In fact a QGIS plugin kit that gives you EVERYTHING would be ideal.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-ca"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Cheers</FONT></SPAN>
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