DevelopmentEnvironment_Win7

Introduction

The steps discussed in this wiki are only for users who want to make changes to DXF2GCODE; for normal use: just follow https://sourceforge.net/p/dxf2gcode/wiki/Installation/

If you plan to work on the code and the user interface, then here are some development versions for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows which give a fairly consistent results:

• Windows: Python2.7.5 from the PythonX,Y distribution (for addition information of Win7 see
• Ubuntu 8.04: off-the-shelf Python 2.5.2 works ok
• Mac OS X: the Darwinports python26 package (currently at 2.6.4)

Do not waste time on the Windows Cygwin Python distribution (currently 2.5.2) - it has serious issues with geometry management.

The Python/Aqua delivered with Mac OS 10.x works native (without X11 server), but with some surprises. The Darwinports Python needs X11, but is more consistent with the other versions.

Installing Python

The programs and very basic steps for what I have

Programs

(0) (very nice and convenient IDE) PyCharm https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/download/ (Community Edition 4.5.1)

(1) Python https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2710/ (Windows x86 MSI Installer (2.7.10))

(2) pywin32 -- This name can be a bit confusing for 64bit users, but there is also a 64bit version of it, which is also named pywin32 http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/files/pywin32/ (pywin32-218.win32-py2.7.exe)

(3) PyQt4 http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/download (PyQt4-4.11.3-gpl-Py3.4-Qt4.8.6-x32.exe)

(4) pyinstaller-2.1 https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyinstaller/files/?source=navbar (pyinstaller-2.1.zip)

Setup

(1) Install Python 2.7.10 - for convenience just install it to the directory

C:\Python27 (though, this location can be chosen freely)

(2) Install pywin32

(3) Install PyQt4 to the exact same folder as where Python is located

C:\Python27

(4) extract pyinstaller-2.0 to

C:\Python27\pyinstaller-2.0

(this is not a necessarily location for the pyinstaller, but since the "make_exe.py" has this location as default, it might be just as easy to place it at this location as well)

Making an Executable

Before every build delete the following two folders: "build", and "dist" (the first time you want to build these sub-directories should not be present).

Open "IDLE (Python GUI)" (probably located at Start->All Programs->Python 2.7) -> Open the file "make_exe.py" -> Press F5 to run it. Wait till it shows READY.

Now it has created (if everything went well) a dist folder which contains a folder named dxf2gcode. In this newly created dxf2gcode folder add the Language folder (i18n) located in the main directory.

Now you can run your just created dxf2gcode.exe (first time you run it: it will create, if it's not already present, the 2 config folders)