Installation and usage

To start using the package, one can download the whole repo. The ‘main.py’ serves as the main hub for starting the app. “requirements.txt” lists all packages required for this project to run. One can create an environment for this project either using conda or installing the necessary packages using pip (for creating virtual environments using pip see this).

Using pip:

pip install virtualenv
py -m venv NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
PATH/TO/NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME/Scripts/activate
cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -e .

By default, pip installs the new environment in the current working directory. To change that, add the desirable path to the environment:

py -m venv PATH/TO/ENVIRONMENT/NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME

Using conda:

conda create --name NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
conda activate NEW_ENVIRONMENT NAME
cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
conda install --file requirements.txt -c conda-forge
conda develop .

Finally, to run the app, run the ‘main.py’ script.

Executable

On Windows, to create an executable, one can run the following: first, a separate virtual environment is highly recommended for a faster and smoother experience with the app, as pyinstaller packs everything it finds in the virtual environment; using pip:

pip install virtualenv
py -m venv PATH/TO/NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
PATH/TO/NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME/Scripts/activate

where the last command activates the environment. Here, all the necessary packages along with the app package itself should be installed. To do this, run from the environment (given the package was downloaded):

cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -e .

where the latter command installs the package itself in the environment. To create the executable, pyinstaller should be installed, too:

pip install pyinstaller

Then, given the current directory is set to where the package is, run

pyinstaller --clean --onedir --noconsole main.py

which packs everything in the package for the “main.exe” executable for the app. Options ‘onedir’ for installing everything into a single directory and ‘noconsole’ for running the app without a console are recommended. Additionally, in the ‘_tab.py’ files in the “src/daplis_rtp/gui” folder, change the first lines in the ‘init’ functions to the following:

def __init__(self, parent=None):
    super().__init__(parent)
    os.chdir(r"FULL\PATH\TO\daplis_rtp\gui\ui")
    uic.loadUi(
        r"LiveTimestamps_tab_c.ui",
        self,
    )
    os.chdir("../..")

A full path to the ‘.ui’ files should be provided as pyinstaller does not handle relative paths, as it’s implemented in the package. To run the app, run ‘main.exe’ in the ‘dist’ folder.

If using conda, use the following chain of commands:

conda create --name NEW_ENVIRONMENT_NAME
conda activate NEW_ENVIRONMENT NAME
cd PATH/TO/THIS/PACKAGE
conda install --file requirements.txt -c conda-forge
conda install pyinstaller -c conda-forge

and the rest stay the same as for the installation using pip.