Zim

I have no idea how I'm supposed to be installing dependencies/plugins

Asked by Plac

The first thing I'm trying to do is make it so I can use link map which requires graphviz. I went to the site and downloaded the installer, still not able to use graphviz. I don't know what "In specific the "dot" command should be available in the system path. " means.

The second thing is installing plugins from github.

https://github.com/jaap-karssenberg/zim-wiki/wiki/TreeMap-plugin-%28converted-Text2mindmap-custom-tool%29

For example, I have no idea what to do with that.

No disrespect intended, but I feel like a lot of this stuff outside of the usage of what comes installed, requires a specific level of knowledge about python development.

What should I be doing?

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#1

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg) said : 		#2

For the linkmap plugin, zim uses another application, GraphViz, to do some of the work. Since we did not include the complete GraphViz package in the zim installer it needs to be installed separately. However the remaining problem now is that zim needs to know where the GraphViz package was installed. On linux this is usually taken care of by the package management. On windows applications are typically installed on their own and it is more difficult to do this automatically.

There is a system "environment variable" on windows "PATH" which lists all folders that need to be searched when you look for an application. For zim to be able to find the graphviz package, the folder in which the "dot.exe" executable was installed must be in that PATH folder list.

You can either do that by
a/ going into the system configuration panel, look for advanced options, environment parameters, and edit PATH
b/ use a small ".bat" file to set the path and start zim

The .bat file could be something like:

    PATH=%PATH%;C:\localdata\Graphviz 2.21\bin
    zim.exe

Save this as "zim.bat" and double click to start.

So far this is not python specific, more windows specific (I assume you are on windows).

You also link to a plugin in our wiki. This is a user contributed plugin that I do not support directly. To install that one you need to save the python code to a plugin file and install it in the plugin folder: %APPSDATA%/zim/local/zim/plugins

I agree installing non standard plugins is not streamlined yet. Planning to improve that when we get more user contributed plugins.

REgards,

Jaap