You can install a plug-in with Abaqus and make it available to every user at your site. Alternatively, you can install a plug-in in your home directory, and it will not be visible to other users. When you start Abaqus/CAE, it searches for plug-in files in the following directories and all their subdirectories:

• abaqus_dir\abaqus_plugins, where abaqus_dir is the Abaqus parent directory.

• abaqus_dir\code\python\lib\abaqus_plugins, where abaqus_dir is the Abaqus parent directory.

• home_dir\abaqus_plugins, where home_dir is your home directory.

• current_dir\abaqus_plugins, where current_dir is the current directory.

• plugin_dir, where plugin_dir is a directory specified in the abaqus_v6.env file by the environment variable plugin_central_dir. You can store plug-ins in a central location that can be accessed by all users at your site if the directory to which plugin_central_dir refers is mounted on a file system that all users can access. For example,

  plugin_central_dir = r'\\fileServer\sharedDirectory'

  For more information, see “Using the Abaqus environment files,” Section 4.1 of the Abaqus Installation and Licensing Guide.

Abaqus/CAE will import any files in these directories that match the naming convention *_plugin.py. These files must contain registration commands. The name of the file must follow the rules described in “Standard Abaqus Scripting Interface exceptions,” Section 5.5.2 of the Abaqus Scripting User's Guide.