Help writing a plugin

[MikeMaloney]

The attached zip isn't being accepted as a valid plugin.
It is simply an xml file that points to a python script.

Using the web interface to the main documentation, the link to the plugin documentation is broken, so I don't know if there are any missing xml tags.

Thanks

[MikeMaloney]

Sorry, I thought I was in the plugin subsection.

Feel free to move this.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by MikeMaloney

Using the web interface to the main documentation, the link to the plugin documentation is broken, so I don't know if there are any missing xml tags.

Can you please clarify exactly what link you're talking about that's broken? I'd dearly love to fix it.

As to your specific problem; a Sigil plugin is much more than an xml file pointing to a Python script. Your best bet for learning is to download and examining existing plugins.

[MikeMaloney]

I found the framework documentation using a web search. It may be that firewall settings are interfering with the execution of the link.

Having found the documentation, I'm still missing something.

Would you be kind enough to look at this revised attempt?
(It's a really short program.)

[MikeMaloney]

Broken link: https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil...ork_rev14.epub

Under: Write Your Own Plugins

[DiapDealer]

I only have portable devices at my disposal for the time being. So unzipping and reading the code would be awkward at best. If the code is not available on GitHub, I've got to wait until I get near a PC.

I've fixed the broken link in the user manual, but just know that it's always going to be a download link to an epub.

[MikeMaloney]

I simply did a copy and paste using the examples in the framework guide and Sigil doesn't like the zip file.

When zipping the files I used: zip -r ../demo.zip . -x "*.DS_Store" in the terminal and
unzip -l demo.zip reports
Archive: demo.zip
Length Date Time Name
--------- ---------- ----- ----
313 03-17-2026 14:50 plugin.xml
479 03-17-2026 14:53 plugin.py
--------- -------
792 2 files

Any other suggestions?

[DiapDealer]

A plugin's zip must contain a top-level folder that matches the name tag in the plugin.xml file. All files will be inside that folder.

[KevinH]

Please see the latest revision of the Sigil_PlugIn_Framework_rev15.epub here:

https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil...ork_rev15.epub

You can download the epub in raw format from github.

And yes the name of the plugin (less version info) and the name of its enclosing folder must match and be correctly identified in the plugin's plugin.xml file.

But your plugin.xml is not well formed xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<plugin>>
  <name>FootnoteFixer</name>
  <type>edit</type>
  <version>1.0</version>
  <author>AMaloney</author>
  <description>Converts marked multi-paragraph footnotes to EPUB 3 pop-ups.</description>
  <engine>python3.4</engine>
  <autostart>true</autostart>
  <autoclose>true</autoclose>
  <oslist>osx,unx,win</oslist>
</plugin>

Notice your plugin tag is written incorrectly as "<plugin>>" instead of "<plugin>"

and for consistency your version string should have 3 parts so "1.0.0" versus "1.0" and it should appear in the plugin name after the underscore:

FootnoteFixer_v1.0.0.zip

to match what your plugin.xml says.

After making that change, it should work as far as I can tell.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by MikeMaloney

I found the framework documentation using a web search. It may be that firewall settings are interfering with the execution of the link.

Having found the documentation, I'm still missing something.

Would you be kind enough to look at this revised attempt?
(It's a really short program.)

I had a quick look at the code and I believe that it's somewhat similar to my Footnote Linker plugin.

[MikeMaloney]

Notice your plugin tag is written incorrectly as "<plugin>>" instead of "<plugin>"

and for consistency your version string should have 3 parts so "1.0.0" versus "1.0" and it should appear in the plugin name after the underscore:

FootnoteFixer_v1.0.0.zip

to match what your plugin.xml says.

After making that change, it should work as far as I can tell.

D’oh I knew it had to be something obvious. Thanks

Lesson learned: always use a dedicated programming tool.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by MikeMaloney

Lesson learned: always use a dedicated programming tool.

Or at least a validator.