Developing a plugin. Do I need to restart Cura after every change?

[Tyronnosaurus 7]

I've written a plugin that adds an item to Cura's top menu and runs some code when this item is clicked. Being Python, I'd expect to be able to make changes to my code without needing to restart Cura. From what I've seen, that is not the case.

 

What exactly happens during the 'Loading Plugins' phase of Cura's startup? Do plugins get copied/compiled somewhere else?

 

Can I do something to remove the need to restart? To test my plugin, I have to repeat many steps every time I restart (load part, slice, some lengthy custom analysis...), which is something I'd like to avoid.

[nallath 1,124]

During the loading plugins phase of cura, it's loading the plugins as if they are python modules. 

 

It could theoretically be possible to find a way to re-load such a module based on changes, but that would complicate the flow (since we can now make the assumption that plugin loading only happens during a single moment of the program).

 

What you can do is use the livescripting plugin. That plugin provides a way to execute python code inside the python instance used by Cura. You can find it here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraLiveScriptingPlugin/

[Tyronnosaurus 7]

Thanks, that looks like a useful plugin.