Using a virtualenv in Drawbot

[Maarten Idema]

Thanks for that @justvanrossum. I am using the Python modules todoist, requests, and urllib3 to visualise my todo list in Drawbot.

After reading this I kind of resolved to manually downloading each module and have them sit in the same folder as my Drawbot script. This is so tedious especially for updating modules.

But then I realised that I could still set up my virtualenv, pip install my modules, their dependencies and then in my Drawbot script include the path to the site-packages.

import sys
sys.path.insert(0, "/Users/maartenidema/t_venv/lib/python3.6/site-packages")

On a quick initial test, this seems to work. I wonder if there will be module conflicts with Python versions going forward.

[frederik]

This will not work from within the app itself.

But you can always install drawBot as module and go from there, you can even pop up a drawBot window within the controlled env as drawBot is just plain vanilla.

[Maarten Idema]

It does actually work fine from within DrawBot itself. I have been using this since the end of Jan and haven't had an issue.

[dyb]

@frederik You mentioned opening a drawBot window when used as a module.
How to do that?

[frederik]

this should show a small preview with the same views as what drawBot is using

import vanilla
import drawBot
from drawBot.ui.drawView import DrawView


class PreviewController(object):
    
    def __init__(self):
        self.w = vanilla.Window((400, 400))
        self.w.view = DrawView((0, 0, 0, 0))
        
        self.drawSomeThing()
        
        self.w.open()

    def drawSomeThing(self):
        # draw something
        drawBot.newDrawing()
        drawBot.newPage(300, 300)
        drawBot.fill(1, 0, 0)
        drawBot.rect(20, 20, 200, 200)
        # get the pdf document
        pdfDocument = drawBot.pdfImage()
        drawBot.endDrawing()        
        # set the pdf document in the view
        self.w.view.setPDFDocument(pdfDocument)


from vanilla.test.testTools import executeVanillaTest
executeVanillaTest(PreviewController)

[dyb]

@frederik thanks! the technique is now clear to me;
but where do i get the vanilla.test module from?

from vanilla.test.testTools import executeVanillaTest
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'vanilla.test'

[frederik]

you need to have vanilla installed to build an ui in a pythonic way.

see https://github.com/typesupply/vanilla/tree/master/Lib/vanilla

[dyb]

@frederik of course i do. but my installation didn't have the vanilla/test folder apparently. perhaps the setup doesn't include this?

anyways, i manually copied the files to an appropriate location and now it's working.

[justvanrossum]

Oh, that's a clever idea, thanks for sharing.

... said in Using a virtualenv in Drawbot:

import sys
sys.path.insert(0, "/Users/maartenidema/t_venv/lib/python3.6/site-packages")

You should be able to make that happen automatically. Please try the following:

• Create a folder called /Library/Python/3.6/site-packages if it doesn't already exists
• place a file in there with a .pth extension, say my_venv.pth
• write the line /Users/maartenidema/t_venv/lib/python3.6/site-packages into that file
• Restart DrawBot and see if you can now import from your venv.

Sorry, I didn't test this. Please let us know if it works.

[justvanrossum]

Oh, I've been trapped by a bot it seems Still, my answer may be useful