Setting up
I am first going to describe what you have to do
to get PiScript running on the BMS laboratory system,
then say something about what it takes to get it
running on
your own computer.
One advantage to using the BMS machines is
that updates will be automatically used as (horrors!) bugs are fixed.
In the BMS laboratory
You have to tell
your computer where the PiScript package is.
To do this, you must set the
environment variable PYTHONPATH to include that directory.
Exactly how to do this depends on a few details.
On the system at the BMS, the correct directory is
/extern/homes/bms_g8/python/lib. It is
a subdirectory of my own home directory that is
is openly accessible. I have
set things up this way so I can fix errors rapidly. Please call my attention to them
as you see them.
Exactly what you do depends on which shell
you are using. It could be tcsh or
bash. It seems that in
order to make thing work
at the moment it should be bash.
You can arrange this by typing bash in
any terminal window you open.
Then, while in
your home directory,
edit (create if necessary) a file .bashrc to include these lines:
export PYTHONPATH=/extern/homes/bms_g8/python/lib
In order for this to take effect immediately,
type source .bashrc in your terminal window.
Hereafter whenever you run bash this will
be done automatically.
This is all you need to do to get started.
However, sooner or later you will
probably want to adjust
your TEX environment in PiScript.
And you will want to do this as well:
cd
mkdir .piscript
cd .piscript
mkdir configs
cd configs
touch __init__.py
cd
and then change your .bashrc file so it contains
these lines:
export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/.piscript:/extern/homes/bms_g8/lib/python
export LOCALPISCRIPTDIR=$HOME/.piscript
The point of this extra directory structure
is to be able to store PiScript stuff
that is not overwritten by updates
and also freely accessible to you, such as your own TEX
configuration files.
On your own Linux machine or Mac
Assuming that
a PostScript viewer (such as gv), and Python
are already installed on your computer:
Download the current package.
Unpack it. Set PYTHONPATH to include the piscript subdirectory
as above.
On Windows machines
Things don't work at the moment on Windows,
but when it does
you will open Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment Variables.
Set PYTHONPATH to be the directory containing the functional
PiScript directory.
You can find exactly where this is by searching
for PiScript.py.
Also set an environment variable LOCALPISCRIPTDIR,
and put this also in your PYTHONPATH.
On my machine this is the `hidden'
directory .piscript in my home directory.
This directory should have in it
a subdirectory configs. The configs directory
should have in it an empty file __init__.py.
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