Custom Package Repositories

by Will Pearson (Last modified: 12 Feb 2021)

This is a quick guide to configuring custom package repositories in Rhino.

⚠️ This feature requires modifying advanced settings in Rhino!

By default Rhino uses the official McNeel package server - https://yak.rhino3d.com. In addition (or instead!), it’s possible to configure Rhino to use your own package repositories.

A custom package repository is simply a folder that contains .yak package files. The folder can be on the local machine or on a shared file server. You can configure Rhino to include packages from this repository in the Package Manager by following the steps below.

Go to Options > Advanced and look for the Rhino.PackageManager.Sources setting.
Add the full path to your package repository folder, separating it from the default package server with a semi-colon, e.g. https://yak.rhino3d.com;C:\rhino_packages.
Run the _PackageManager command and search for one of the packages that you added to the new package repository.

for now it just supports whatever Directory.EnumerateFiles() supports, which as far as I can tell is regular paths, mapped drives (Windows), UNC paths (Windows) and mounted shares (macOS)

Tips for shared folders

On Windows use the UNC path, i.e. \\server\share\packages. If the share requires credentials then first navigate to \\server in Explorer, log in and check the “remember my credentials” box.

On macOS the file share needs to be mounted first in Finder via Go > Connect to Server… (⌘ + K). Enter the address (smb://server/share) and provide credentials if required. Now the mounted path can be used as a package source, i.e. /Volumes/share/packages. The mount isn’t persistent, so it’ll need to be remounted in future.