Plugins installation

Support
1

How to install plugins? Should i build firmware from source?

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2

The plugins are built in. All that’s needed is to enable them for your device. Check out the docs for the plugin you’re interested in on how to do that.

3

For example RangeTest plugin. Documentation says i should enable it by setting

range_test_plugin_enabled = 1

But how and where?

4

Lol. I added python api examples just this morning.

Here’s the draft doc:

3 Likes
5

I agree.
@mc-hamster, with respect, I don’t see how your reply answers “But how and where?”.
It would seem that using the Python API, you can do:

meshtastic --set range_test_plugin_enabled 1

However, how do you do this on a TTGO Lora device?
ie “All that’s needed is to enable them for your device” How?
I suspect we need to compile from Source and find this setting. Correct?

6

OK, may have found it - where to enable the plugins: ( If correct, perhaps this can be added to the docs?)
I want to enable the serial plugin:
In MESHTASTIC-DEVICE/src/plugins/SerialPlugin.cpp need to uncomment the line:
// radioConfig.preferences.serialplugin_enabled = 1;

7

not quite. The code is already built with this plugin included. You don’t need to rebuild from source (unless you want to because you are changing the code). I assume that comment you saw is just a remnant of @mc-hamster’s personal testing.

To turn the flag on that you mentioned at runtime you’d do:

“meshtastic --set serialplugin_enabled true”

8

Thanks for the reply.
Good news not having to recompile, BUT
it is not clear where the following is entered: “meshtastic --set serialplugin_enabled true”.
Is this from the CLI on the Python API?
Or the Android App?

9

I think all the info you need is documented here:

Cheers

2 Likes
10

Thanks for sharing that!

11

Hi Mike,

Yeah, you found my little shortcuts to develop and test this quicker. Those let me go through several different configurations really fast without having to exit Visual Studio Code.

@Arne Pointed you in the right direction. Currently those settings are available from the Python API. Thanks for trying this out!

1 Like
12

Ahah. Making more sense now.
Thanks for your quick responses.

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13

Here’s what enabling the plugin looks like with the python tool (with --info showing the before and after states):

setting range test plugin
setting range test plugin667×528 56.3 KB

That’s how I’m setting my mobile ‘receiver’ T-Beam. For my stationary ‘sender’ T-Beam I use these two commands after flashing updated firmware:

meshtastic --set range_test_plugin_enabled 1
meshtastic --set range_test_plugin_sender 60

3 Likes
14

Thanks for that command log.
But on OSX and Ubuntu, I get the following:

Exception: This version of meshtastic-python requires device firmware version 1.2 or later. For more information see Using the python API during the 1.2 transition - Python API - Meshtastic

When I use for example:
meshtastic --set serialplugin_enabled true

Any ideas?

15

To answer my own question - V1.2 refers to the firmware on the device - needed to flash the latest V1.2.10 and that works. :grinning:

1 Like