A plugin for open-ephys enabling the insertion of Cython (Python code translated to C and compiled) into the open-ephys signal chain. Most of the Cython peculiarities are dealt with by a wrapper code, so that essentially usual, "pure" Python code may be used. A tutorial on how to write a python module will follow soon, however, the code in the examples under the python-modules directory may serve as good guidance for now.

At the moment, the plugin is compatible with the Linux and MacOSX versions of Open Ephys. I don't have Windows development expertise, so I will not port it to Windows myseld. If you are interested in porting it to Windows, this is probably a fairly simple task for an experienced developer (most if not all of the work will be replacing the dlopen/dlsym UNIX-style DLL import with the Windows equivalent). Please do contact me, and I will support the port as far as I can.

The Plugin is organized so that it can be compiled as much as possible outside of the main open-ephys source tree. Under Linux, a symlink to the Source/Plugins directory is however necessary. A recent Python version is required The Plugin needs to link to a recent enough version of Python. Development work was done with a recent Anaconda Python distribution, supporting python 3.5. By default, we expect Anaconda to be installed in /usr/local/anaconda , however this may be changed easily as explained below.

To compile, extract in a folder just outside the Open Ephys plugin-GUI source tree e.g.

$ ls src plugin-GUI/ PythonPlugin/ etc... 

The rest of the procedure is system dependent

####Linux

• With Anaconda: edit build-linux.sh and change CONDA_HOME to the Anaconda installation directory (default /usr/local/anaconda), if needed.
• With a different Python distribution: Edit Builds/Linux/Makefile and change the include and lib directories as needed.
• cd PythonPlugin
• run ./build-linux.sh. The Plugin should be copied to the neighboring plugin-GUI source tree.

####MacOSX

• With Anaconda: edit Builds/MacOS/Config/Plugin.xcconfig and set PYTHON_DIR to the Anaconda installation directory
• With a different Python distribution: in the same file, edit HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS and LIBRARY_SEARCH_PATHS to the proper places.
• Open Builds/MacOS/PythonPlugin.xcodeproj in XCode and compile

A binary installation (Linux only for the time being) is provided here. This assumes that you have a suitable Anaconda Python distribution (see above) and that that resides in /usr/local/anaconda. If that is not the case, a symlink should be enough

sudo ln -s /my/install/anaconda /usr/local/anaconda

• Use the Binary-distributed version of Open-Ephys or compile it from source with the Release configuration.
• Copy PythonPlugin.so to the plugins directory, and you are done.