Veronica K. B. Olsen
143 lines
4.7 KiB
ReStructuredText
143 lines
4.7 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _a_started:
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***************
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Getting Started
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***************
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This is a brief guide to how you can get novelWriter running on your computer. These are the methods
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currently supported by the developer. Packages may also be available in other package managers, but
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those are not managed by me.
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.. _a_started_install:
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Installation
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============
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You can download the latest version of novelWriter from the source repository on GitHub_. You can
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also install it directly from PyPi with ``pip install novelwriter``, or download the packages
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directly from the PyPi_ project page.
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Latest version of novelWriter is |release|.
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.. _GitHub: https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/releases
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.. _PyPi: https://pypi.org/project/novelWriter/
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.. _a_started_depend:
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Dependencies
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============
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novelWriter has been designed to rely on as few dependencies as possible. Aside from the package(s)
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needed to communicate with the Qt GUI libraries, only one package is required for handling the XML
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format of the main project file. Everything else is handled with standard Python libraries.
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Optionally, a package can be installed to interface with the Enchant spell checking libaries, but
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this isn't required. If no external spell checking library is available, novelWriter falls back to
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using the internal ``difflib`` of Python to check spelling. This is a much slower approach, and it
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is less sophisticated than full spell checking libaries, but if you only work with small files, the
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performance loss is not noticeable.
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.. _a_started_depend_packages:
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Package Installation
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--------------------
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If you already have Python installed, all you need to do is install the dependencies. To do this,
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you need to open your command line tool, find the folder where you extracted novelWriter, and run
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the following command:
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.. code-block:: console
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python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
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On some operating systems you need to use ``python3`` instead of ``python``.
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The following Python packages are required to run novelWriter:
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* ``pyqt5``, needed for connecting with the Qt5 libraries.
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* ``lxml``, needed full XML support.
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.. note::
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Sometimes the SVG graphics package for PyQt5 must be installed separately. It is usually called
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something like ``python3-pyqt5.qtsvg``.
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PyQt/Qt should be at least 5.2.1, but ideally 5.10 or higher for nearly all features to work.
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Exporting to standard Markdown, for instance, requires PyQt/Qt 5.14. Searching using regular
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expressions requires 5.3, and for full Unicode support, 5.13.
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There are no known minimum for package ``lxml``, but the code was originally written with 4.2,
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which is therefore set as the minimum.
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The spell checking extension is optional, but recommended:
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* ``pyenchant``, needed for efficient spell checking.
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The optional spell check library must be at least 3.0.0 to work with Windows. On Linux, 2.0.0 also
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works fine.
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.. _a_started_running:
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Running novelWriter
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===================
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If all the required dependencies are met, you can run novelWriter from the command line in one of
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the following ways:
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.. code-block:: console
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python novelWriter.py
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python3 novelWriter.py
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./novelWriter.py
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A few switches are supported from the command line, mostly to assist in debugging if an error is
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encountered. To list all options, run:
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.. code-block:: console
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python novelWriter.py --help
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There are also a couple of install scripts in the assets folder which will assist in setting up
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launch icon and the novelWriter project file mimetype for Gnome desktops on Linux. Currently,
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there's one script for Debian and one for Ubuntu.
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.. _a_started_standalone:
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Building a Standalone Executable
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================================
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A standalone executable can be built with pyinstaller, using the provided python script
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``install.py`` in the source folder. This script will automatically try to install all dependencies
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and build the standalone executable of novelWriter. You can run the script by typing the following
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into your command prompt:
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.. code-block:: console
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python install.py
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If successful, the executable will be in the "dist" folder.
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.. _a_started_standalone_win:
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Additional Instructions for Windows
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-----------------------------------
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If you don't have Python installed, you can download it from the python.org website.
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The installers for Windows are available at https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
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novelWriter should work with Python 3.6 or higher, and the executable installer is the easiest to
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install.
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Also, make sure you select the "Add Python to PATH" option.
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.. image:: images/python_win_install.png
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:width: 600
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Once Python is set up and running, you can either run novelWriter from the folder where you
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extracted it, or you can build an executable and run that from a desktop icon instead.
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