Relative paths for local dependencies

[PatrickHaecker]

(Sorry, for not providing a notebook or a video. This issue is about how Pluto interacts with the environment rather than a problem within Pluto itself.)

When using packages that are not (yet) in a registry, you can edit the notebook environment to use relative paths. This is important for portability, as each user may have different paths, such as those containing their username.

However, the relative paths to packages defined in the manifest are then used relative to the temporary environment (i.e., somewhere deep in /tmp). Therefore, using packages located inside a user's home directory seems to be impossible in a portable manner.

Relative paths should instead be used relative to the notebook file. Of course, there should be no change to absolute paths or if there is no path attribute in the manifest.

As a workaround, you can use the Pattern: The “shared environment”. However, this approach means you will lose the auto-installing feature.