fabrial 0.2.8

Fabrial lets you create sequences to automate lab experiments.

Fabrial

Fabrial runs user-built sequences. It was originally designed to control lab instruments, but it can be extended through plugins to do much more.

Installation

The easiest way to install and manage Python executables is with uv tool. See uv's documentation for using this command. Otherwise, I highly recommend using a virtual environment.

Install fabrial with

pip install fabrial

and run it with

fabrial

Application Shortcut

If you'd like Fabrial to have an application shortcut (i.e. the Start Menu on Windows or a .desktop file on Linux), run

pip install fabrial[shortcut]

instead. Then, inside virtual environment Fabrial is installed in, enter the Python shell and run

>>> import fabrial
>>> fabrial.create_application_shortcut()

Usage

Drag and drop sequence actions from the left into the sequence builder on the right. Then, select a directory to record data it, press the start button, and voilà! You've got a running sequence. Each action has its own parameters you can customize from the sequence builder, as well as a description of what the action does.

Plugins

Fabrial does very little on its own, but it can be extended through plugins that add new sequence actions.

Fabrial plugins on PyPi are generally prefixed with fabrial-. If you install a local plugin with pip, Fabrial will recognize it automatically. Global plugins can be installed through the settings menu. Note that if a plugin is installed in both the current environment and in the plugins folder, the latter plugin is ignored.

If no plugin exists for your use case, you can also write your own!

Error Log

Fabrial logs any errors it encounters in HOME/.fabrial/lastrun.log. This error log is wiped at startup, so if Fabrial encounters an error, please consider reporting before starting restarting the application!

Icons Attribution

Fabrial's internal icons come from the Fugue Icon Set by Yusuke Kamiyamane, which is licensed under CC BY 3.0.