Debugging

Type debugging · needs nothing: no network.

A plugin for testing PaperPi itself. It can crash, hang, and switch between the states "nothing", "ready" and "alert" in a fixed pattern. It needs no network.

Every update adds 1 to a count kept in the file count in its storage folder: plugins/<folder>/ in PaperPi's state folder (/var/lib/paperpi unless paperpi run --state-dir says otherwise). The folder name is made from the plugin's id: lowercase, with - for _, e.g. debugging-5d5b3b43. The count decides what the update does, so the same settings always give the same pattern.

Layouts

Layout	Shows
text_state (default)	text above the state ("ready", "alert")

The image shows nothing else, no time or count, so two updates with the same state give the same image and the screen is not written again.

Settings

Setting	Default	Meaning
text	"debugging"	Text shown above the state, e.g. to tell several debugging plugins apart
states	["ready"]	States to report, one per update, then from the start
crash_every	0	Every Nth update raises an error; 0 = never
hang_every	0	Every Nth update hangs until its time limit stops it; 0 = never
delay	0	Seconds each update takes, like a slow web request

It suggests a refresh every 30 seconds.

An alert every 3rd update, and a crash every 5th:

[[plugin]]
id = "debugging-5d5b3b43"
name = "Test alert"
type = "debugging"
level = "alert"
text = "test alert"
states = ["nothing", "nothing", "alert"]
crash_every = 5
refresh = 20

Draw its sample image: uv run paperpi render debugging. To see the pattern, use paperpi run (see Running from source): render starts with a new, empty storage folder each time, so its count is always 1.

All settings

Made from the plugin's code, so always up to date.

Setting	Default	What it does
text	"debugging"	Text shown above the state
states	["ready"]	States to report, one per update, then from the start, e.g. ["nothing", "nothing", "alert"]
crash_every	0	Every Nth update raises an error; 0 = never
hang_every	0	Every Nth update hangs until its time limit; 0 = never
delay	0	Seconds each update takes

Its suggestions for settings every plugin has (a block that sets one of them uses that value instead):

Setting	Default	What it does
refresh	30	Seconds between updates (at least 5). Leave it out to use the plugin's suggestion
level	"rotation"	When it is shown: alert, interrupt or rotation. Leave it out to use the plugin's suggestion
layout	"text_state"	Which layout (see the plugin's page). Leave it out to use the first
storage_mb	500	Most megabytes this plugin may keep in its storage folder; over it, the files changed longest ago are removed first. Leave it out to use the plugin's suggestion
storage_days	30	Files the plugin has not changed for this many days are removed (0 = keep them). Leave it out to use the plugin's suggestion

Sample images

All sample images are in tests/images/, named debugging-text_state-<screen>.png (see basic_clock for the screen names).