novelWriter/docs/source/int_source.rst

.. _a_source:

*******************
Running from Source
*******************

.. _main website: https://novelwriter.io
.. _GitHub: https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/releases
.. _PyPi: https://pypi.org/project/novelWriter/
.. _Sphinx Docs: https://www.sphinx-doc.org/

This section describes various ways of running novelWriter directly from the source code, and how
to build the various components like the translation files and documentation.

.. note::
   The text below assumes the command ``python`` corresponds to a Python 3 executable. Python 2 is
   now deprecated, but many systems still have both Python 2 and 3. For such systems, the command
   ``python3`` may be needed instead. Likewise, ``pip`` may need to be replaced with ``pip3``.

Most of the custom commands for building packages of novelWriter, or building assets, are contained
in the ``pkgutils.py`` script in the root of the source code. You can list the available commands
by running:

.. code-block:: bash

   python pkgutils.py help

.. warning::

   Calling ``setup.py install`` has been deprecated for a while, and this approach is no longer
   actively supported in novelWriter either.


.. _a_source_depend:

Dependencies
============

novelWriter has been designed to rely on as few dependencies as possible. Aside from the packages
needed to communicate with the Qt GUI libraries, only one package is required for handling the XML
format of the main project file. Everything else is handled with standard Python libraries.

The following Python packages are needed to run novelWriter:

* ``PyQt5`` – needed for connecting with the Qt5 libraries.
* ``PyEnchant`` – needed for spell checking (optional).

PyQt/Qt should be at least 5.10, but ideally 5.13 or higher for all features to work. For instance,
searching using regular expressions with full Unicode support requires 5.13.

If you want spell checking, you must install the ``PyEnchant`` package. The spell check library
must be at least 3.0 to work with Windows. On Linux, 2.0 also works fine.

If you install from PyPi, these dependencies should be installed automatically. If you install from
source, dependencies can still be installed from PyPi with:

.. code-block:: bash

   pip install -r requirements.txt

.. note::

   On Linux distros, the Qt library is usually split up into multiple packages. In some cases,
   secondary dependencies may not be installed automatically. For novelWriter, the library files
   for renderring the SVG icons may be left out and needs to be installed manually. This is the
   case on for instance Arch Linux.


.. _a_source_install:

Build and Install from Source
=============================

If you want to install novelWriter directly from the source available on GitHub_, you must first
build the package using the Python Packaging Authority's build tool. It can be installed with:

.. code-block:: bash

   pip install --upgrade build

On Debian-based systems the tool can also be installed with:

.. code-block:: bash

   sudo apt install python3-build

With the tool installed, run the following command from the root of the novelWriter source code:

.. code-block:: bash

   python -m build

This should generate two files in the ``dist/`` folder at your current location. One with file
extension ``.tar.gz`` and one with extension ``.whl``. The latter is the package you want to
install, here with example version number 2.0.7, but your may be different:

.. code-block:: bash

   pip install --user dist/novelWriter-2.0.7-py3-none-any.whl


.. _a_source_i18n:

Building the Translation Files
==============================

If you installed novelWriter from a package, the translation files should be pre-built and
included. If you're running novelWriter from the source code, you will need to generate the files
yourself. The files you need will be written to the ``novelwriter/assets/i18n`` folder, and will
have the ``.qm`` file extension.

You can build the ``.qm`` files with:

.. code-block:: bash

   python pkgutils.py qtlrelease

This requires that the Qt Linguist tool is installed on your system. On Ubuntu and Debian, the
needed package is called ``qttools5-dev-tools``.

.. note::
   If you want to improve novelWriter with translation files for another language, or update an
   existing translation, instructions for how to contribute can be found in the ``README.md`` file
   in the ``i18n`` folder of the source code.


.. _a_source_sample:

Building the Example Project
============================

In order to be able to create new projects from example files, you need a ``sample.zip`` file in
the ``assets`` folder of the source. This file can be built from setup script by running:

.. code-block:: bash

   python pkgutils.py sample


.. _a_source_docs:

Building the Documentation
==========================

A local copy of this documentation can be generated as HTML. This requires the following Python
packages from PyPi:

.. code-block:: bash

   pip install furo sphinx

The documentation can then be built from the root folder in the source code by running:

.. code-block:: bash

   make -C docs html

If successful, the documentation should be available in the ``docs/build/html`` folder and you can
open the ``index.html`` file in your browser.

You can also build a PDF manual from the documentation using the setup script:

.. code-block:: bash

   python pkgutils.py manual

This will build the documentation as a PDF using LaTeX. The file will then be copied into the
assets folder and made available in the :guilabel:`Help` menu in novelWriter. The Sphinx build
system has a few extra dependencies when building the PDF. Please check the `Sphinx Docs`_ for more
details.