Installing Pydon the Hard Way on Windows
Introduction

Installing Pydon the Hard Way on Windows

Dependencies

Dependencies are:

Optional dependencies:

Tools needed on Windows:

  • 7-zip – to unpack pyosc.tar.gz, XBee-2.0.1.tar.gz and pyserial-sensestage.tar.gz
  • A driver for the coordinator board, either the FTDI driver, or another driver (as for the Arduino Uno).

Installation step by step

Step by step instructions are below, also always check the INSTALL.md in the package for the latest information.

These step by step instructions are basically the commands carried out by the installation script.

The instructions below, need to be executed in the terminal. For each code snippet you see there, you have to copy them literally into the terminal, except when otherwise noted and except for the dollar sign, which indicates the command prompt.

On Windows this is called the “command prompt”, and can be opened from the Windows menu by typing cmd.exe in the dialog box that shows up when choosing Run. See also the instructions below.

[step 0] : install 7-zip

[step 1] : unpack everything

Unpack the zip-file that you downloaded (ssdn-python-master) by doubleclicking on it.

Then:

  • Right-click on pyosc.tar.gz, in the context menu there should be an entry “7-zip”, select that and choose “extract here”.

  • Then do the same again on the resulting pyosc.tar file. Now you have a folder pyosc.

  • Right-click on XBee2.0.1.tar.gz, in the context menu there should be an entry “7-zip”, select that and choose “extract here”.

  • Then do the same again on the resulting XBee2.0.1.tar file. Now you have a folder XBee2.0.1

  • Right-click on pyserial-sensestage.tar.gz, in the context menu there should be an entry “7-zip”, select that and choose “extract here”.
  • Then do the same again on the resulting pyserial.tar file. Now you have a folder pyserial-sensestage

[step 2] : open cmd.exe and navigate

Open cmd.exe from the run menu of Windows.

Unpack the zip-file, and go to the folder you just created.

C:> cd C:\Users\myusername\Downloads\ssdn_python\

where C:\Users\myusername\Downloads\ssdn_python\ is the path in your file system.

If you need to switch to another drive you need to type:

C:> E:

if you want to go to drive “E:”, and then use cd (change directory) to navigate to the actual path.

[step 2] : check Python version

On some operating systems python will already be installed, before you go on, check whether you have the right version:

check which version you have:

$ python --version

If it is lower than 2.6 you will need to get a version higher than 2.6, but below version 3.

Make sure Python is in your path.

Alternatively you can provide the full path to python when invoking python, e.g.

C:> C:\Python2-7\python.exe mypythonscript.py

[step 3] : Install setuptools

Setuptools is a tool to manage dependencies for Python packages, you can get it at setuptools at pypi.python.org and find install instructions there too.

  • Navigate to the extracted package
  • Type: 
    C:> python ez_setup.py

[step 4] : Install the dependencies:

  • Navigate to pyosc and install: 
    C:> cd pyosc
C:> C:\Python2-7\python.exe setup.py install
C:> cd ..
  • Navigate to XBee.2.0.1 and install: 
    C:> cd XBee2.0.1
C:> C:\Python2-7\python.exe setup.py install
C:> cd ..
  • Navigate to pyserial-sensestage and install: 
    C:> cd pyserial-sensestage
C:> C:\Python2-7\python.exe setup.py install

[step 5] : Pydon

C:> cd pydon
C:> C:\Python2-7\python.exe setup.py install

For more information on python setup scripts, see the python documentation.

Starting the program

You can now start the program with:

C:> cd scripts
C:> C:\Python2-7\python.exe pydongui.py