714b17eacd
GUI / plugin lifecycle: - Auto-close Electrum's native 'Electrum Plugins' manager dialog after the BAL plugin is hot-enabled. Electrum 4.7.x no longer calls the old init_qt hook, so the close is now triggered from the create_status_bar, init_menubar and load_wallet hooks (fired when reload_windows() recreates the window). - Robust dialog matching (isinstance / class name / localized window title) to cope with zipimport module-identity mismatches. - Robust dismissal of the modal dialog (reject()/done()/close()) with a retry schedule [400, 800, 1500] ms; if it still cannot be closed, fall back to bringing it to the front (showNormal/raise_/activateWindow) so it never lingers hidden in the background. Counting only visible top-levels avoids treating an already-closed dialog as still open. Read-only field styling: - Paint the locked Delivery time / Check Alive date editors and the mining-fee spinbox with a light-grey background (#f0f0f0) so the user can see at a glance that they are not editable outside the 'Build your will' wizard; the styling is cleared when the fields are made editable again. Pickle/RLock crash on 'Build will': - heirs.save() now sanitises the heirs mapping via _json_safe() before handing it to json_db.put(), which deep-copies the value. A live runtime object (holding a threading.RLock) slipping into an heir value previously raised 'TypeError: cannot pickle _thread.RLock object' and aborted the task; such values are now coerced to str and logged with their path. - init_heirs_to_locktime() coerces the locktime to a plain serializable scalar. - log_error() now accepts both a sys.exc_info() triple and a single exception instance, fixing the secondary 'TypeError object is not subscriptable' that masked the real error.
BAL — Bitcoin After Life (Electrum plugin)
Free and decentralized Bitcoin inheritance support for the Electrum wallet. Build time-locked "will" transactions that transfer your funds to your heirs if you stop refreshing them (dead-man's switch), optionally relayed by will-executor servers.
This repository contains a behavior-preserving refactor of the original plugin. The logic was kept byte-identical wherever possible; only the file layout was reorganized to cleanly separate business logic from the PyQt GUI.
Repository layout
bal/ the installable Electrum plugin package
├── manifest.json plugin metadata (Electrum reads this)
├── qt.py Qt entry-point shim (re-exports Plugin)
├── core/ GUI-free logic (importable without Qt)
│ ├── util.py
│ ├── plugin_base.py
│ ├── heirs.py
│ ├── will.py
│ └── willexecutors.py
├── gui/qt/ PyQt6 presentation layer
│ ├── theme.py status → color mapping
│ ├── common.py shared imports / helpers
│ ├── widgets.py leaf widgets
│ ├── calendar.py calendar widget
│ ├── dialogs.py dialog windows
│ ├── lists.py tree/list views
│ ├── window.py per-wallet GUI controller
│ └── plugin.py Plugin (Electrum @hooks → GUI)
├── icons/ wallet_util/ LICENSE VERSION README.md
build_zip.py builds a clean, zipimport-friendly distribution zip
tests/ smoke + external-zip regression tests
Requirements
- Electrum 4.7.2 — the last stable release exposing
json_db.register_dict, which this plugin relies on. Newer versions removed it. - PyQt6 (bundled with the Electrum desktop GUI).
Installation
Build the distribution archive
python3 build_zip.py
# -> bal-electrum-plugin.zip (prints size + SHA-256 for integrity checks)
The builder writes a zipimport-friendly archive (files only, standard
DEFLATE, deterministic order) to avoid loader errors seen on some Electrum
portable builds.
Install as an external plugin (zip)
- Electrum → Tools → Plugins → install from file → pick the built zip.
- Enable Bitcoin After Life and restart Electrum.
- (Recommended) verify the downloaded zip's SHA-256 matches the value printed
by
build_zip.py.
Install as an internal plugin
Copy the bal/ directory into your Electrum installation's
electrum/plugins/ directory, so that electrum/plugins/bal/manifest.json
exists, then enable it from Tools → Plugins.
Testing
# imports + behavior
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen PYTHONPATH=<electrum-src> \
python3 tests/smoke_test.py electrum.plugins.bal
# external-zip loading regression
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen PYTHONPATH=<electrum-src> \
python3 tests/external_zip_test.py bal-electrum-plugin.zip
⚠️ Safety
This plugin builds real Bitcoin inheritance transactions with time-locks. Test on testnet or a fund-less wallet first, and review the generated transactions before broadcasting.
License
MIT — see bal/LICENSE.