blender-extension-builder 1.2.0

Build Blender extensions.

blender-extension-builder

A builder for blender extensions.

Blender allows you to add dependencies via packaging wheels with the extension, however you have to manually grab the wheels and put the filenames in the blender_manifest.toml file. This can be cumbersome, especially with many dependencies, and dependencies of dependencies that you don't control. This project aims to aid in that, and make it all a lot easier.

Installation

Install via pip

pip install blender-extension-builder

You also need Blender available on the PATH in order to build the extension.

Usage

You can use the command

build-blender-extension -h

Or

python -m build_blender_extension -h

Setting up blender_manifest.toml

Since this aims to make managing dependencies easier, there are a couple things added to the blender_manifest.toml file. The file will be structured like any blender_manifest.toml file, just with a few new options.

schema_version = "1.0.0"
id = "my_example_extension"
version = "1.0.0"
name = "My Example Extension"
tagline = "This is another extension"
maintainer = "Developer name <[e-mail]>"
type = "add-on"
blender_version_min = "4.2.0"
license = [
  "SPDX:GPL-3.0-or-later",
]

# Place dependencies here. They can be in any format that pip supports.
dependencies = [
    'numpy'
]
# Folder to store the wheels in the addon.
wheel-path = './wheels'

# If you would like to manually specify the wheels, you still can.
# This If you also specify dependencies, those will be appended into this.
wheels = [
  './wheels/pillow-10.3.0-cp311-cp311-win_amd64.whl',
]

# Use this if blender is skipping a wheel for python version
# incompatibility (even though it's compatible)
# This can also be enabled in the commandline with `--ensure-cp311` or `-cp311`
ensure-cp311 = true

[build]
# Some optional extra options were added to this table

# Folder containing the source code of the extension. Defaults to the current directory
source = './src'
# Folder for where the extension will be stored
# with all the files (to build the extension). Defaults to ./build
build = './build'
# Output folder for the built addon in the .zip file.
dist = './dist'

# This contains a list of files or folders to keep in the built extension.
paths_include = [
  'LICENSE',
  'README.md',
]

All you have to do is now run

build-blender-extension -m blender_manifest.toml

Note: if you don't specify any arguments, it will try to use blender_manifest.toml.