Installing more workbenches

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Revision as of 15:23, 5 December 2018 by Vocx (talk | contribs) (→‎Description: More concise)

Description

It is easy to add external workbenches to FreeCAD.

Workbenches are contained in a folder that must be simply copied into

$ROOT_DIR/Mod/

where $ROOT_DIR is a top level directory searched by FreeCAD on startup.

The Mod/ directories are scanned every time FreeCAD is started, and the available workbenches are automatically added.

Installing system-wide

Workbenches installed in the FreeCAD installation directory will be available to all users. Depending on your system, you might need administrator privileges to access this installation directory.

Copy the workbench folder into $INSTALL_DIR/Mod/, where $INSTALL_DIR is the FreeCAD installation directory.

  • On Linux it will probably be /usr/share/freecad/Mod
  • On Windows it will probably be C:\Program Files\FreeCAD\Mod
  • On Mac OSX it will probably be /Applications/FreeCAD/Mod

Installing for a single user

Workbenches installed this way will be available only to one user, but will not require any administrator privileges.

Copy the workbench folder into $USER_DIR/Mod/, where $USER_DIR is the FreeCAD directory for a particular username.

  • On Linux it will probably be ~/.FreeCAD/Mod, where ~ expands to the user's home directory, for example, /home/username/.FreeCAD/Mod
  • On Windows it will probably be C:\Users\username\Application Data\FreeCAD\Mod
  • On Mac OSX it will probably be ~/Library/Preferences/FreeCAD/Mod. One way to get to the preferences directory is to use the "Finder" menu item Go → Go to Folder, and then enter ~/Library/Preferences/FreeCAD.

Additional information

Additional information on how to create a custom workbench can be found on the Power users hub and the Developer hub.

See also How to install additional workbenches.