I'm using win32com with python to generate Automated PowerPoint pptx files.
My scripts are generally ran on window based machines.
Apparently, because I'm using win32com my scripts wouldn't work on other hardware/Operating systems - Max/Linux/other.
Is this really the case? if so, is there a solution?
When you use win32com, you are communicating with Windows programs, in this case PowerPoint.
So, no, it won't work without the Windows program, which means it typically won't work without Windows, although you might be able to make it work if you install PowerPoint on WINE and then use the Windows version of Python with it. There was a question and answer about this technique here:
automating excel with win32com on linux with wine
Other options (that don't require installing PowerPoint on Linux) include automating a cross-platform package like OpenOffice/LibreOffice, or (since you're using Python) using restructuredText and S5 to create slides.
Edit: As Tris Nefzger points out above, there is a cross-platform Python package designed specifically for creating PowerPoint slides, as well.
Related
I have tried portable python but the latest version is 3.2.5. (need 3.6+)
I cannot install libraries on it, even the get-pip.py doesn't work.
I'm trying to figure out how to make my project portable on windows systems that do not have python installed.
Also I want the minimum possible libraries(core python modules) to keep the project as lean as possible,
I would go with cx_Freeze - multiplatform module for freezing your Python script in a way that allows you to open it on other Windows machines even if they do not have Python installed. It got very nice and clear documentation also: http://cx-freeze.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ and works a bit better on Windows machines then alternative PyInstaller from my experience (which has interesting option of one-file-package, but in many cases leads to security warnings due to some dirty hacks used to obtain that feature).
However, it may not be enough if you are using some specific modules in your app, as for example matplotlib, dash, etc modules are very hard to pack correctly with Freezer.
I have found a solution to my own question after a couple of days.
I did not want to create an executable for my project but I wanted a portable python folder so that I can add libraries to it as and when I need.
The recent version of portable python is WinPython.
I had to delete some unnecessary files out of it though.
It's size is about 77 mb after extracting
https://winpython.github.io/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/winpython/files/WinPython_3.6/3.6.5.0/WinPython64-3.6.5.0Zero.exe/download
I'm looking for an equivalent Python library that will work when I run my script on Raspberry Pi. I'm under the impression that pywinauto only works on windows machine.
I want to control some inputs to a GUI launched by my script, using my script. Apart from pywinauto I have no idea how to do this. I thought about using command line to control the software directly, but if there is a simpler way I would really appreciate knowing about it.
Thanks for your time.
ATSPI is an Linux accessibility technology to obtain GUI text/rectangle properties programmatically. See how to find and run ATSPI registry daemon and how to enable ATSPI for the most popular types of GUI apps. Usually it's
$ /usr/libexec/at-spi-registryd &
There is a Python bindings for ATSPI. See this answer for details:
How to install pyatspi?
The pyatspi package has too many dependencies like pygobject etc. It also requires some compilation during installation steps. We think this is not user friendly so we decided to use libatspi.so directly (without any dependencies). This work status can be tracked here: https://github.com/pywinauto/pywinauto/pull/449
There is no exact deadline for pywinauto 0.7.0 with this feature (it's a hobby project), but I would say this summer sounds realistic.
I would like to write some Python code in Windows using QtPy. But before I do that I'd like to know that I can use the code I wrote in Python. I understand that the complied program won't work due to different platforms but will there be any issues with regards to the *.py files I write in windows vs linux?
I've been trying to install QtPy on my Mint installation and I just don't know what the problem is. Which is why I wanna go this route.
I'd also like my code to work on the raspberry pi.
Could you guys advise me to this end?
Thanks!
Mostly, yes, as long as you keep to using the tools Python provides you and don't write code that is platform specific.
Use os.path.join() to build paths, for example. Open files in binary mode when you deal with binary data, text mode when it's text data. Etc.
Python code itself is platform agnostic; the interpreter on Linux can read python code written on Windows just fine and vice versa.
The general rule of thumb is to pay attention to the documentation of the modules you are using; any platform specific gotchas should be documented.
It depends on what your code does. Most packages work in both windows and linux however some such as signal only work in windows and are not portable. But in the python docs it will say what platforms a given package works in.
I have written a program. I don't know if it is important how it is written but you can find it here: http://pastebin.com/Z3ZvVPV8 Basically, it asks you to assign values to variables and will perform calculations depending on what variables you chose, and prints the answer.
I would like to know how I can make the program run in a window other than cmd (I am using Windows Vista 32bit). I don't need much at all in terms of GUI, just a window that is a bit more user friendly/easier to look at when they are using the program.
EDIT: To those suggesting using IDLE, while that would work for me, if others want to use the program they would have to download it, so I was hoping for a way for that not to happen.
Python comes with a sort of default GUI package TkInter you can use it.
Also there is a lot of other GUI packages available.
The Python standard library offers a lot of ways to implemt simple (but also rather complex) GUIs. I'd like to point you at the documentation of TK (tool kit for graphical interfaces) http://docs.python.org/library/tk.html where you will find also some useful example of use.
Py2Exe is a viable option if you really don't need a gui. This will make it run and look like a command prompt, but it will be an .exe file. Here is a quick quote from thier page: "py2exe is a Python Distutils extension which converts Python scripts into executable Windows programs, able to run without requiring a Python installation."
Another alternative is to get Portable Python. Here is a quote from thier webpage: "Portable Python is a Python® programming language preconfigured to run directly from any USB storage device, enabling you to have, at any time, a portable programming environment. Just download it, extract to your portable storage device or hard drive and in 10 minutes you are ready to create your next Python® application." After packaging the portable python and your .py or .pyc file then create a .bat file that runs the portable python "Python-Portable.exe" with the correct command line parameters for loading your script. Be sure to use relative paths in the batch file in case they are running it from a flash drive, or something other than the same location as you.
NOTE: This is really not a good way to do this as thier download page states: "Installed size: based on selected packages, between 49MB and 480MB". Also be sure to read the the current Python Software Foundation License, as that is what Portable Python is released under, and it may or may not be legal to package it in a closed source project. I haven't really looked at the license myself to be able to tell you. If you are releasing it as open source, then there would not be an issue though. As a quick side note, if you need that .bat file to be a .exe file then you can use a .bat to .exe converter battoexe.com is one. This is really going the long way about doing the whole thing, but it is an option.
Sources:
Working with Python on and off for 7 years now, a lot that using a portable version on a flash drive, and also dealing with Batch files much longer.
I'm talking about deploying Python-made, GUI-based, desktop applications via .app and .exe format for OSX and Windows. As far as I've gone into Python, I've only seen it as an application that runs on the Terminal / Command Prompt. I know that it is possible to create a user interface for it using various offerings on the internet (wxPython?). I just want to see how it passess off as a way for a developer to create mac and windows applications with as little code difference as possible.
I find that Python is a very good language for GUI programming. As you have stated, you can use the bindings for wxWidgets (wxPython), but there's also a binding for just about every other cross-platform GUI toolkit you can think of (Tk, Qt, GTK, FLTK, etc.). These GUI toolkits should allow you to make a program that will run unmodified on most OSs.
In terms of Python OS compatibility, it will behave virtually the same on all OSs, except for one or two modules such as mmap.
Using py2exe, py2app, or similar tools, you can embed a Python interpreter (along with your program's bytecode and it's dependencies) within an executable, making it easy to distribute an application. An end user can then open the program as they are used to. If you want the "security" of a compiled language, Python will not be the best language for you to use (but I prefer readability over safety :).
Another thing to consider with cross-platformness is what OS specific features you plan on using. Most GUI toolkits will not support things such as Microsoft's DWM (though you can use OS features through ctypes).
I think what you're looking for is PyQT and Tkinter. Both are GUI Libraries for use with Python. Both are cross-platform. Further, for packaging up .exe and .app for distribution, look at py2exe and py2app.
For Windows, the easiest approach is py2exe. There's also a similar project for MacOS. It's called py2app. Most GUI frameworks are cross platform. Just check their documentation, or even the home pages should have it.
Make good use of the os module. It has many function that will handle cross platform situations. A common example is file paths. When you build a path should it be backslash or forward slash? os.path.join handles that for you, and works based on which operating system it's running on. You shouldn't have to modify your code at all when shipping from OS to OS. It should run on Linux just as well, naturally.
By the way, MacOS often comes prepackaged with Python. As long as it's a somewhat recent version this can make the difference between a Hello World script being 1kb and 30mb, so avoid packaging Python with it. Unfortunately Windows isn't as well equip. Consider an option for "I already have Python installed" when downloading the exe.