Subject: Addon Manager dependency issue with Radiance requirement

[Ramaddan]

Hello Francisco,

I am testing the Solar workbench on FreeCAD (AppImage version) and ran into a dependency issue with the Addon Manager.

In package.xml there is this dependency:

<depend
type="addon"

Radiance

The FreeCAD Addon Manager appears to interpret this as a requirement for a FreeCAD addon named "Radiance". I could not find such an addon, and it does not seem to correspond to the Radiance simulation engine.

The actual requirements appear to be:

Radiance binaries (rtrace, oconv, etc.)
ladybug-radiance
ladybug-core
pysolar

I installed Radiance system-wide (/usr/local/radiance) and verified:

which rtrace
which oconv
/usr/local/radiance/bin/rtrace
/usr/local/radiance/bin/oconv

rtrace is found in PATH
oconv is found
RAYPATH=/usr/local/radiance/lib
ladybug_radiance imports correctly in FreeCAD's Python
SkyMatrix imports correctly

The Solar workbench dependencies themselves appear fine. The issue seems to be only the Addon Manager dependency declaration.

Would it be possible to change this dependency to a different mechanism, such as:

documenting Radiance as an external application requirement, or
adding a runtime check for Radiance executables,
rather than declaring it as a FreeCAD addon dependency?

This would avoid the Addon Manager searching for a non-existent "Radiance" FreeCAD addon while still informing users that Radiance is required.

Thank you for your work on the Solar workbench.

Regards