QuickStart

Verify tkinter Installed

Note

You only need tkinter if you use the PyHatch GUI. (The GUI is recommended, but not required)

In Theory tkinter is included with all standard Python distributions. (In practice, it might not be included.) It’s almost certainly there on a Windows machine, however, on Linux you might have to try:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-tk
sudo apt-get install python3-tk

In order to get tkinter/Tkinter for python 2 & 3.

You can test the installation from a terminal window with:

>>> import Tkinter       # python2
>>> Tkinter._test()      # python2

>>> import tkinter       # python3
>>> tkinter._test()      # python3

This should pop up a small test window.

Verify Sphinx Installed

Sphinx is highly recommended for creating your project’s documentation.

See http://sphinx-doc.org/latest/install.html for Install Instructions.

Install PyHatch

The easiest way to install PyHatch is:

pip install pyhatch

    OR on Linux
sudo pip install pyhatch
    OR perhaps
pip install --user pyhatch

In case of error, see pip Error Messages

Installation From Source

Much less common, but if installing from source, then the best way to install pyhatch is to use pip after navigating to the directory holding pyhatch source code:

cd full/path/to/pyhatch
pip install -e .

    OR on Linux
sudo pip install -e .
    OR perhaps
pip install --user -e .

This will execute the local setup.py file and insure that the pip-specific commands in setup.py are run.

Running pyhatch

Note

Before running PyHatch, it is best to complete the first two steps of the New Project Checklist

After installing with pip, there will be a launch command line program called pyhatch or, on Windows, pyhatch.exe. From a terminal or command prompt window simply type:

pyhatch

and the PyHatch GUI should pop up. If not, then there may be an issue with your system path. The path for the pyhatch executable might be something like:

/usr/local/bin/pyhatch             (if installed with sudo pip install -e .)
     or
/home/<user>/.local/bin/pyhatch    (if installed with pip install -e .)
     or
C:\Python27\Scripts\pyhatch.exe    (on Windows)

Make sure your system path includes the above path to pyhatch.

After launching pyhatch, you simply fill in the form, select a directory in which to place the new project and hit the Build Project button.

It is possible to run the PyHatch GUI directly from source without installing it. Simply navigate to the source files and type:

python hatch_gui.py

pip Error Messages

If you get an error message that pip is not found, see https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html for full description of pip installation.

I’ve sometimes had issues with pip failing on Linux with a message like:

InsecurePlatformWarning
        or
Cannot fetch index base URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/

Certain Python platforms (specifically, versions of Python earlier than 2.7.9) have the InsecurePlatformWarning. If you encounter this warning, it is strongly recommended you upgrade to a newer Python version, or that you use pyOpenSSL.

Also pip may be mis-configured and point to the wrong PyPI repository. You need to fix this global problem with pip just to make python usable on your system.

If you give up on upgrading python or fixing pip, you might also try downloading the pyhatch source package (and all dependency source packages) from PyPI and installing from source as shown above at Installation From Source