Decide how to source EnergyPlus

[shyamamrith]

There are 3 possible options:

• Pre-package EnergyPlus (previous). Probably not allowed by QGIS as they state "do not include binaries".
• Automatically download EnergyPlus during initialisation (current)
  • Avoids packaging the binary files, but QGIS may not like a plugin to download files in the background for security reasons
  • If a notice is displayed to the user clearly asking for permission to download, then this should be fine?
• User downloads EnergyPlus. This is the least ideal of course, however it could be made easier, for example:
  • The plugin displays a direct download link
  • The link is a pre-prepared zip file containing all platform versions of EP
  • On the same screen, the user is prompted to enter the path to this downloaded zip
  • The plugin automatically copies the necessary files to its own directory in the background

Note: licensing should not be a problem in any of the options since the EnergyPlus license has been copied to the license.txt file, and in this states that redistribution of the software is permitted if the copyright notice is included.

[shyamamrith]

Code written for plugin to ask the user for permission and then download, extract and cleanup EnergyPlus: 880f10d This has been tested on Windows and Mac - runs successfully