Hi Walter, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to explain all of this in such level of detail. :) also apologies for taking so long to respond, I have to do this on my work machine and we are so busy at the minute I just haven't the time to do anything - I will not be deterred though!
I followed your instructions and now have no errors, but all that seems to happen is either the dos window or python window (not sure which - it's black and only appears for a millisecond) pops up and then.... nothing. I maybe incorrectly assumed that I would have a terminal like window with a blinking cursor and that would accept my commands to the "t" program? Thanks again for all your help. Best Regards, Dave Hanson <http://hansonforensics.co.uk/> On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 1:29 AM, Walter Prins <wpr...@gmail.com> wrote: > HI Dave, > > > On 7 February 2012 16:55, Dave Hanson <d...@hansonforensics.co.uk> wrote: > >> I tried what you said, many attempts result in this message: >> >> >>> *C:\Documents and Settings\dhanson2\Desktop>"C:\Python27\python.exe" >>> "C:\t.py"* >>> * * >>> *C:\Python27\python.exe: can't open file 'C:\t.py': [Errno 2] No such >>> file or directory* >>> >> >> I've tried moving t.py around but still no joy? >> >> Here is what I put in my bat file with and without the quotes: >> >> >>> *"C:\Python27\python.exe" "C:\t.py" %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 >>> * >> >> >> > The error message implies that the program "t.py" is in the root of your > C:\ drive? I'd have thought this would not be the case -- you need to give > the correct path to the "t.py" file for Python to load it. (And as an > aside, you need to quote paths if theycontains spaces, otherwise the > command prompt will interpret the first part up to a space in the path as > the path/command and the remainder of the path as a command line argument! > (One subtlety of command lines...) The "Documents and Settings" folder on > Windows XP was therefore very unfortunately chosen since the spaces causes > endless problems with people not realising this and trying to use files > located inside Documents and Settings. You'll notice on Windows 7 > Microsoft has wisely (at last) decided to shorten and remove spaces as much > as possible from paths to avoid gotchas with people forgetting to quote > paths, and similarly Python itself does not uses spaces in any of its > folder names. But I digress. > > Anyway, I've had a quick further look at this program and got it working > the way you want on my machine. The precise steps I followed was: > 1.) Install Mercurial for Windows (to be able to checkout the source). I > got it here: http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.org/download/index.html > 2.) Retrieved the source code. On my machine I opened a command prompt, > and: > cd "C:\Users\walterp\Documents\Python" > hg clone https://bitbucket.org/sjl/t > > This creates a folder called "t" inside of my Python source folder. > Adjust folders as required for your machine and/or where you keep your > Python source. > > 3) Create a batch file called "t.bat" in > "C:\Users\walterp\Documents\Python\t", so the full filename is > "C:\Users\walterp\Documents\Python\t\t.bat", containing these lines: > > @echo off > c: > cd C:\Users\walterp\Documents\Python\t > c:\python27\python.exe "C:\Users\walterp\Documents\Python\t\t.py" %1 %2 %3 > %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 > > The effect of these commands is to stop the command interpreter from > displaying the commands issues by the batch file (which is unwanted here) > via the "@echo off" line, and then setting up the environment prior to > running the t.py program such that it will always run having the "current > working folder" be the same folder that the t.py program is located in. > > This is important since the t.py program currently assumes that it will > always be run from the same starting location, which is not the case if you > go and put the program on the command line search path so that you can use > it from any other working folder. (Without this, if you run the program > from another location, then the t.py program will create a new task list in > the new location -- basically the t.py command will create and manage a > task list in whatever folder you happen to be in, so in order to ensure it > always updates the same task list, the lines above therefore ensures it > always effectively runs from the same place, regardless of where the batch > file t.bat might have been run from, thereby effectively ensuring it to > always uses the same task list file.) > > Also, note that in order to in fact use the t.bat file from any other > folder, you'll have to add the bat files location to you system (or user) > PATH variable. Do you know how to do this, and are you allowed to do so, > or are you blocked by your IT policies? If so you should also be able to > do this via e.g. another batch file, perhaps the same one you use to > circumvent the cmd.exe blocks on your system, by simply adding it to the > PATH variable there, e.g. a line like this ought to do it: > PATH=%PATH%;C:\Users\walterp\Documents\Python\t > > Lastly a minor observation: I note this source code includes a setup.py > script. This implies you can install t.py into your Python environment > such that an .exe file will be created for it (really copy of the t.py file > and the python interpreter [I think, or a launcher of some sort] combined) > in the Python\Scripts folder. Some Python distributions (e.g. Activestate > IIRC) puts this folder onto the system Path thereby making "system wide" > installed Python packages/commands (where appropriate) instantly usable > from the command prompt, others (e.g. standard Python on Windows) do not > and leaves this step for you to complete. Anyway, I've obviously not gone > the route of installin via setup.py, since installing this program in this > way will make it difficult/impossible for you to tinker/edit the program > easily, and I'm assuming you want to actually be able to edit the program > (and possibly submit patches back to the author?) while using it etc. So, > for this to be possible you actually need the t.py to "run from source" and > don't want to embedded in your Python environment, which is what not using > setup.py and doing the above effectively enables you to do easily. (Aside: > when I noticed the program isn't location/working directory independent I > immediately thought this might be a useful patch/enhancement to make -- > make it get the folder location of itself and use that for the location of > the tasks list etc.) > > Let me know if you have further problems. > > Walter > > >
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