# Installing extensions in binary distribution of Slicer

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/installing-extensions-in-binary-distribution-of-slicer/7511>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** extensions-manager\
**Created:** [July 10, 2019, 10:59pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/installing-extensions-in-binary-distribution-of-slicer/7511 "2019-07-10T22:59:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jcfr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/jcfr/32/17825_2.png) [@jcfr](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/jcfr)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 7:02am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/installing-extensions-in-binary-distribution-of-slicer/7511/2 "2019-07-11T07:02:10Z")

</div>

~~Assuming the user where Slicer and the extensions are installed is called `slicer`,~~ the idea is to create a script called `SlicerWithExtensions.sh` along side the Slicer launcher in your shared installation.

The script only need to be updated with the name of the user under which Slicer is installed on the cluster:

```bash
#!/bin/bash -e

# This is the username associated with the Slicer installation to share between users.
slicer_user=jcfr # TODO: Update this line

script_dir=$(cd $(dirname $0) || exit 1; pwd)
script_name=$(basename $0)

# launcher and launcher settings
launcher=${script_dir}/Slicer
launcher_settings=${script_dir}/bin/SlicerLauncherSettings.ini
echo "Launcher settings ........: ${launcher_settings}"

# sanity checks
if [! -f ${launcher}]; then
  echo "${script_name} is expected to exist along side the Slicer launcher: ${launcher} not found"
  exit 1
fi
if [! -f ${launcher_settings}]; then
  echo "${script_name} is expected to exist along side the Slicer launcher: ${launcher_settings} not found"
  exit 1
fi

# extract revision
revision=$(cat ${launcher_settings} | grep revision= | cut -d= -f2)
echo "Revision .................: ${revision}"

# revision user settings
slicer_revision_user_settings=/home/${slicer_user}/.config/NA-MIC/Slicer-${revision}.ini
echo "Revision user settings ...: ${launcher_settings}"

# sanity check
if [! -f ${slicer_revision_user_settings}]; then
  echo "Slicer revision user settings not found: ${slicer_revision_user_settings}"
  exit 1
fi

# extract additional module paths
# TODO Handle module path with spaces
additional_module_paths=$(cat ${slicer_revision_user_settings} | grep AdditionalPaths= | cut -d= -f2 | tr -d ",")
echo "Additional module paths ..: ${additional_module_paths}"

${launcher} --launcher-additional-settings ${slicer_revision_user_settings} --additional-module-paths ${additional_module_paths} "$@"

```

### more details

Generally speaking, extensions are installed in the Slicer setting directory specific to the user and all information are added to a ini file. For example, the ini file associated Slicer 4.10.1 on linux is `~/.config/NA-MIC/Slicer-27931.ini`.

After installing an extension, you can see settings groups like `[LibraryPaths]`, `[PYTHONPATH]`, `[Paths]` and also `[Modules]` with the key `AdditionalPaths`.

To automatically set the environment before starting the real Slicer application, the Slicer launcher is able to infer the path to the user Slicer revision specific file `~/.config/NA-MIC/Slicer-27931.ini` given information found in the launcher settings.

Here is a snippet of the launcher settings associated with Slicer 4.10.1 (e.g. `/path/to/Slicer-4.10.1-linux-amd64/bin/SlicerLauncherSettings.ini`)

```auto
[...]

[Application]
path=<APPLAUNCHER_DIR>/bin/SlicerApp-real
arguments=
name=Slicer
revision=27931
organizationDomain=www.na-mic.org
organizationName=NA-MIC

[...]

```

Within the `[Application]` group, we can see the key `name`, `revision` and `organizationName`. These information are sufficient to retrieve the revision specific settings file and compose the environment needed to load the additional modules associated with the `AdditionalPaths` key.

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/installing-extensions-in-binary-distribution-of-slicer/7511)._