Virtualenvwrapper plugins for gems and npms

In a previous post, we've seen how to modify your activate script to keep inside a virtualenv the packages from Node and Ruby called gems and npms. I find useful to be able to try gems or npms inside a virtualenv without contaminate your setup.

As virtualwrapper is offering a way to extend it via plugins. I wrote two small plugins for handling the env variables in a nicer way and doing some cleaning when you deactivate the virtualenv.

This post assume that you are using virtualenvwrapper, otherwise I advice you to check it first.

Ironicaly, this packages cannot be installed inside a virtualenv but as to be installed globally as virtualenvwrapper.

virtualenvwrapper gem plugin

There is a lot of very useful ruby packages like foreman, jekyll, sass ...

Download and install

I encourage you to install it via pip :

pip install virtualenvwrapper.gem

How to use it

mkvirtualenv test
workon test #if not already inside
gem install sass
which sass # should refer to $VIRTUAL_ENV/lib/gems/bin/sass

virtualenvwrapper plugin for gem

Node has some amazing tools to handle assets like webassets, gulp, ...

Download and install:

I encourage you to install it via pip:

pip install virtualenvwrapper.npm

How to use it

mkvirtualenv test
workon test #if not already inside
npm install -g gulp
which gulp # should refer to $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/gulp