I'd like to write cross platform Python scripts that are GUI frontends for command line programs. The problem is I know a few Mac users who think that using the terminal will have the same effect as throwing their computer off the top of a skyscraper. In Linux and Windows it's easy enough to setup a Python script so the user can double click an icon and the script will start without opening any extra windows. Is there an easy way to do this with OS-X? Would the user have to install a different Python than the one that comes with OS-X? I haven't been able to find a definitive answer.
You might want to look at Platypus. It's a freeware app for generating apps which wrap scripts.
Another way to do something like that is using Automator or even AppleScript Editor. Either can produce an application which just runs a script.
Update:
For Automator: Launch Automator, select the Application template, type "script" in the search field, double-click Run Shell Script, switch the shell pop-up menu to /usr/bin/python, type/paste your Python script into the text field. Or, leave the pop-menu on /bin/bash and just write an invocation of an external script in the text field. Save as an application.
You can also view help from its Help menu.
For AppleScript, launch AppleScript Editor, type the following as the script:
do shell script "/usr/bin/true"
Replace /usr/bin/true with the path to whatever script you like. Save as an application.
Again, there's help in the Help menu.
py2app does this with aplomb. You make your Python script, use whatever dependencies you need (wx, Tkinter, etc.) and py2app makes you a standalone app bundle that will run in any modern OS X environment. It bundles Python too, so you can use any Python you want (not just the system default).
The downside is that the generated apps might be large, up to 50MB if you have a lot of dependencies (though that is somewhat of an extreme).
There are two ways to do this:
Click on a script.
Press command-i to open the "get info" window.
Expand the "Open With" section (if it isn't already).
Choose "Python Launcher" from the drop-down menu.
Click "Change All" if you would like ALL Python scripts to launch when double clicked.
Possibly open Python Launcher and uncheck "Run in a Terminal window"
This will work for this machine only, so it is less portable than the following. Why? Because the default for opening a document type varies depending on what is installed (XCode and/or IDLE will both take over opening a .py file).
Method Two:
Validate the Interpreter Directive, that's the first line of the file. I suggest using /usr/bin/env python3. This will run the first python3 interpreter that is on the users path.
Make the script executable chmod a+x <script_name> from the Terminal.
Change the extension from .py to .command (this will be opened by the Terminal).
Use zip or tar for distribution so that the permissions do not get mangled.
This method will open a Terminal window, but when the Python window is closed the terminal window will also close.
If your script has dependencies outside of the standard library, then you should provide a second .command file to install those. This may make things more complicated, but using pip3 install --user <list of dependencies> should minimize complications.
Related
I'm asking help today because I'm new to Tkinter and Pyinstaller (and python in general) and I'm having troubles with it.
I have a simple app working with sqlite, tkinter and pyinstaller to compile all of this in an executable program, the entrance point of my program is a file named main.py
This file calls all the dependancies (like the sqlite module for python, tkinter and my other files like classes etc...)
I made a very simple interface, with a Hello World in a tkinter label and a button to go to page 2 which displays page2 (also in a label), just to see if I'm capable of making it all run and compile all of these pieces together.
I can run it throught my shell executing it like : python main.py and everything is working fine.
But when I run pyinstaller on my linux machine, and start executing the program, nothing appears, my database.db (sqlite database file) is created but I don't have any interface like when I run it with my shell. The thing is getting even worse on windows where, once I've my .exe it just opens a shell and crash after few seconds, not even creating the database.
What I did is I created a 'log file', in which I write the steps of the program.
As you can see on the following picture, the 2 first prints are wrote in my log file (on linux), so I think it crashes when I try to create the window.
If any of you have an idea on what I do wrong, I would really appreciate help :)
General
From the PyInstaller manual:
Before you attempt to bundle to one file, make sure your app works correctly when bundled to one folder. It is is much easier to diagnose problems in one-folder mode.
As the comments suggested, use a catch-all try/except block to log all exceptions to a file. That is probably the best way to see what is really happening. Make sure that the logfile is created in an existing location where you have the necessary permissions.
I would suggest to take advantage of the built-in logging module instead of creating your own. It can e.g. automatically add from which file a log line was created.
IMHO, it is probable that the failures on Linux and ms-windows have completely different causes. You should probably treat them as different issues.
Linux
When you use single file mode, that file is unpacked into a temporary folder, probably somewhere in /tmp. Some Linux distributions mount the /tmp filesystem with the noexec flag. This is incompatible with PyInstaller.
ms-windows
On windows, there are basically two different Pythons; python.exe and pythonw.exe. Basically it is one of the quirks of windows that this is necessary. The latter is for GUI programs like tkinter programs. A tkinter script should not show a cmd window. So I'm guessing that PyInstaller calls your command with python.exe instead of pythonw.exe. From the manual:
By default the bootloader creates a command-line console (a terminal window in GNU/Linux and Mac OS, a command window in Windows). It gives this window to the Python interpreter for its standard input and output. Your script’s use of print and input() are directed here. Error messages from Python and default logging output also appear in the console window.
An option for Windows and Mac OS is to tell PyInstaller to not provide a console window. The bootloader starts Python with no target for standard output or input. Do this when your script has a graphical interface for user input and can properly report its own diagnostics.
As noted in the CPython tutorial Appendix, for Windows a file extention of .pyw suppresses the console window that normally appears. Likewise, a console window will not be provided when using a myscript.pyw script with PyInstaller.
Also, on windows it can matter which Python distribution you're using. I used to be a fan of Anaconda, but lately I've come to prefer the python.org version because it gives me less headaches. On anaconda Python I had the problem that tkinter programs would not launch without showing a cmd window, whatever I tried. Only switching to python.org Python solved that problem.
I am teaching a class that uses VScode.
I am used to teaching using IDLE, and it is very nice for the students to be able to call their defined functions and run snippets of code in a python terminal, for debugging purposes.
In VScode, they I have been unable to do the same in a satisfactory way.
Option1: I can select all code, right click and run selection/line on terminal. This works for small snippets, but I cannot do it for the whole file (even after selecting the whole file with ctrl-A). On linux, this works, but on windows, it does not, unfortunately (and my students use windows)
Option2: I can use the debug console. This requires adding a breakpoint in one of the last lines of the file, and does not offer tab completion. It works, but is less convenient than IDLE.
Option 3: I can also add the commands to run to the bottom of the file (which is a least preferred alternative, given that is forgoes the interativity of the read-print-eval loop).
Is there any better solution? Installing a VScode extension would not be a problem.
Visual Code is just a text editor like your traditional notepad. to run and debug any kind program you need to install the particular extension for the programming language.
In your case you are using python so you need to install the extension of it. the best one is the "Python" which is developed by microsoft itself. go to your extensions manager and install this extension. right click and click "run python file in terminal" and you are all set.
this will run exactly as they run from the idle(which is default IDE provided by python itself) you can enter the arguments from the console itself. according to me this is the best way to run and debug python programs in VScode.
another way is that VScode shows which python version is installed on your computer on the left bottom side, click on it and the programs will use this interpreter.
out of all the ways listed here and many others, the best method is to run the program in the terminal which is the recommend by python itself and many other programmers.
this method is very simple. what you have to do is open up your command prompt and type the path where python.exe is installed and the type the path of the your program as the argument and press enter. you are done !
ex : C:\Python27\python.exe C:\Users\Username\Desktop\my_python_script.py
You can also pass your arguments of your program in the command prompt itself.
if you do not want to type all this and then just use the solution mentioned above.
hope that your query is solved.
regards
I am running python 2.7.1. I can't figure out how to launch the IDLE IDE. I am told it comes already installed with python, but I can't find it using spotlight.
In the stock Mac OS X python installation, idle is found in /usr/bin, which is not (easily) accessible from Finder and not indexed by Spotlight. The quickest option is to open the Terminal utility and type 'idle' at the prompt. For a more Mac-like way of opening it, you'll have to create a small app or shortcut to launch /usr/bin/idle for you (an exercise left to the reader).
When you open up a new terminal window, just type in
idle
Then you will see a little rocket icon show up as IDLE loads
Then the Python shell opens up for you to edit
I think the shell command is
python -m idlelib.idle
but i am not a mac user so i can't test.
One way to run IDLE from spotlight or an icon in the Applications folder is to build a quick Automation for it. As mentioned by other commentators, this probably isn't necessary for Python 3, as it creates a shortcut automatically, and some hand-installed versions have tools to do this automatically. But if you want to roll your own:
You'll need to know the terminal command to open your version of IDLE. On my Mac right now (early 2016), running python 2.7.10, it is "idle2.7"
Using spotlight, or in the Utilities folder, open "Automator"
Choose an "Application" type document.
Make sure "Actions" is selected in the gray bar, upper left.
In the actions column, find "Run Shell Script" and double-click it, or drag it to the workflow area on the right.
Enter the terminal command in the parameters box that appears.
Save your automation (I called mine "IDLE" and put it in the Applications folder, to make it easy).
It's now available (as soon as spotlight indexes it) via all the normal methods. The only side-effect will be that while it's running, your menu bar will have a spinning gear over in the tray area next to the clock. This indicates an automation workflow is running. Once you close IDLE, it will go away.
first to launch the terminal CMD+space
second to input idle3
the idle will be activated automatically.
After you launch idle from the command line (make sure idle shell window has focus), click File, click "New File". A new window opens; this is your editor.
Type your program in the editor. Click "File", click "Save As...". Save your file somewhere with any name you choose, and a ".py" extension to the file name.
Click "Run", click "Run Module" (or, F5). Assuming no errors, the results will appear in the Shell window. Edit your file & repeat as necessary.
The answer of Matthewm1970 works like a charm!
And if you add an & to your shell command, the automation script will end immediately. There is no spinning gear. Like so:
/usr/local/bin/idle3.5&
Note the ampersand.
Cheers.
-melle
open Terminal
type "idle" and press enter
right click on "Python" icon > Options > Keep in Dock
so for python 3.4.3 in applications a folder named "python 3.4" click that and click IDLE.
for python 2.7.9 go here https://www.python.org/downloads/ and get 2.7.9 and a folder named "python 2.7" click that and click IDLE.
As to the earlier questions about starting IDLE: you can certainly start it from the command line. Also, if you installed Python using Homebrew, you can run 'brew linkapps' (from the command line); that will place an app for IDLE (among other things) in Launchpad (Applications folder).
I recently tried to convert one of my python scripts (used for file-systems I/O) to a executable file by using py2exe. However, after successfully generating the .exe file from my python script, I am no longer able to copy and paste any text(or anything for that matter) from other windows apps to my python app console (when I run the script/app from the .exe file). When right click the mouse now, the access window does not pop up any longer. Does anyone know how I can get around this issue?
Thanks,
A.L.
Right-clicking a console window is a "special feature" of the command line interpreter of Windows Vista and above. It doesn't work on any other command-line tool, so it doesn't longer works for your converted script. You can still access it using the windows menu (small icon in the title bar or Alt+Space).
You could try to get the right-click feature back by messing around with Windows API calls - but the more convenient possibility would be to enable pasting using Ctrl+V and forget about the window menu. A good candidate is PyReadline - install the package and run this at the beginning of your script:
import readline
readline.parse_and_bind("control-v: paste")
I created a script that will tell me what to wear in the morning based on the weather (i.e. rain slicker if it will rain, heavy jacket if it will be cold, etc). I have fairly basic programming experience with python and the script works perfectly, but I want to be able to create a file that I can just double-click from my desktop and the script will automatically run.
My goal is to be able to simply double click [something] in the morning and it will automatically run the script and thus tell me what to wear. How could I go about doing this?
System Specifications:
python
Mac OSX
This worked for me on Snow Leopard:
-Put the python script on the desktop.
-Right click on the script file, and choose "Get info"
-Find "Open With", and choose "Python Launcher" from the dropdown box
Now double-clicking the script file will run the script in a new terminal window.
I'm not sure what versions of OS X come with the Python Launcher application. If you don't have that, you can solve it with a couple extra steps:
-Put the python script anywhere
-Create a shell script on the desktop with one line:
python "/Users/john/scripts/what-to-wear.py"
(Where I've assumed your script is called what-to-wear.py and is in /Users/john/scripts. Be aware that you do need to use an absolute path.)
-Make the shell script executable. In a terminal:
chmod 755 what-to-wear-shell-script
-Double clicking the shell script should run it in a terminal, running your python script.
What you want to do is create an executable file.
I've never used a Mac or Python, but look at this question and the first answer:
How can I create a directly-executable cross-platform GUI app using Python?
Seems http://svn.pythonmac.org/py2app/py2app/trunk/doc/index.html is what you're looking for
Use a batch file to make it automatic
Example :
1. Open Notepad -> type the following.
This one's for Windows..It might give you a hint
:start
C:\Python34\python.exe(your python file location)Your *.py file location.
:end
Save this with a *.bat extension
That's it ..you can configure more on this batch,I guess batch is the automation for day to day script
In Linux/unix based OS , add #!/usr/bin/python3 line on top of your script file with extension .py , if you have python version 3. Or change it to the version installed in the machine
Further , make the file executable by
sudo chmod +x <fileName>
for windows, add windows python path and make the file executable
You want the script to download the weather information online and output the clothes based on your predefined rules?
If this is the case, use urllib to download the page and do some ad hoc parsing over the downloaded html page to get the whether information. And write your logic using nested IF THEN ELSE blocks.