Manually Installing HL 3.0 Plugins

This document describes how to manually install plugins. If you are looking for a description how to install plugins from an official plugin source then read PluginManagerConsole.

Suppose you have already created a plugin assembly for HL 3.0 by following the instructions in CreatingPlugins. The next step is to install the plugin in HL 3.0. To do so you first have to package all files of your plugin together into a plugin package.

Creating the Plugin Package

First check if all files that your plugin needs are defined via PluginFile attributes of your plugin class. Check if you really defined all dependencies via the Dependency attribute. Also make sure that all the plugins that you listed as dependencies are already installed in HL 3.0.

Before you can install the new plugin you have to create a zip file that contains all files of your plugin. Make sure the files are in the root directory of the zip file. You can use any name for the zip package.

Installing Plugins via Plugin Manager Console

After you created the zip package you can install your new plugin via the [PluginManagerConsole Plugin Manager Console]. Once you successfully installed your plugin in your installation of HL 3.0 you can also use the [PluginManagerConsole Plugin Manager Console] to publish your plugin to a plugin source.

Installing Plugins the Dirty Way

If for some reason you can't or don't want to install the plugin via the Plugin Manager Console then you can just copy all plugin files to the plugin directory of HeuristicLab 3.0 (typically: C:/Program Files/HeuristicLab 3.0/plugins). The plugin will automatically be loaded the next time you start HeuristicLab 3.0. However the plugin loader will not call the OnInstall() method of your plugin. Follow this method only if you are sure that you know what you are doing!

If Something Goes Wrong

If HeuristicLab won't start after you installed a new plugin or if there are problems with the plugin you can manually remove all files of your plugin from the plugin directory of HeuristicLab. HL will not try to load your plugin again on the next start. However if you manually delete plugins the plugin infrastructure will not call the OnDelete() method of you plugin.