XPPython3

Warning

This documentation is for XPPython3 v3.1.5, which is the last version to support X-Plane 11.

If you are using X-Plane 12, you should install the lastest version of this plugin, available here.

XPPython3 1 is a plugin for Laminar Research X-Plane. It supports writing of additional plugins using python3. This is an upgrade of Sandy Barbour’s excellent PythonInterface plugin, which supported only python2.

Curious? See current usage graphs.

Key Requirements

  • X-Plane 11.50 minimum, tentative support also for X-Plane 12. There is no attempt to make this work on older versions of X-Plane. This plugin cannot co-exist with the older “PythonInterface” plugin, so you if your favorite plugin still uses Python2, ask the plugin’s maintainer to port it to Python3. (Python2 is end-of-life.)

  • 64-bit only: X-Plane is now 64-bit only, which means it only works for 64-bit versions of python.

  • X-Plane SDK 303 minimum: This is base SDK version for X-Plane 11.50. Vulkan/Metal and OpenGL are supported.

  • Python3 only: Python3.10 is recommended. This will not work with python2 programs which are not compatible with Python3. Note that you will have to use the correct version of this plugin to match the version of python installed on your system. We currently support python3.7, python3.8, python3.9, and python3.10. However we will be dropping support for python versions earlier than python3.9 with the arrival of X-Plane 12.

XPPython3 will also work with X-Plane 12. Please file bug reports if you have issues.

Installation

See Plugin Installation to install the XPPython3 plugin. Everyone needs to do this.

Development

See Plugin Development to use the XPPython3 plugin for developing new python-based XP Plugins. Read this to see examples and learn how to build your own python plugins.

Building

Note

You do not need to build XPPython3 to use python plugins, or to develop new python plugins. However, you may find it useful if you’re trying to track down a crash bug in during your plugin development.