abacusSoftware 1.6.1

Abacus Software is a suite of tools built to ensure your experience with Tausand's coincidence counters becomes simplified.

AbacusSoftware

Abacus Software is a suite of tools built to ensure your experience with Tausand's coincidence counters becomes simplified.

Written in Python3, abacusSoftware relies on the following modules:

• pyAbacus
• pyqtgraph
• NumPy
• PyQt5
• pyserial
• qtmodern

Preview

A quick demo video to preview this software is available at: https://youtu.be/c4QO8p1WeSE

Installation

abacusSoftware can be installed using pip as:

pip install abacusSoftware

Or from GitHub

pip install git+https://github.com/Tausand-dev/abacusSoftware.git

Execute abacusSoftware

On a terminal or command prompt type

abacusSoftware

Grant port access on Linux

Most Linux configurations have a dialout group for full and direct access to serial ports. By adding your user account to this group you will have the necessary permissions for Abacus Software to communicate with the serial ports.

1. Open Terminal.
2. Enter the following command, replacing <username> with the name of your account.

sudo usermod -a -G dialout <username>

3. Sign in and out for the changes to take effect.

For developers

Updating to a new version

Write the changes of the new version in the file LastVersionNotes.md. Once the version is ready to update, run the script updateversion.py to include the last version notes in the release_history.md file.

Creating a virtual environment

Run the following code to create a virtual environment called .venv

python -m venv .venv

Activate

• On Unix systems:

source .venv/bin/activate

• On Windows:

.venv\Scripts\activate

Deactivate

deactivate

Installing packages

After the virtual environment has been activated, install required packages by using:

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Freezing code

After activating the virtual environment

Windows

Run the following command

pyinstaller --additional-hooks-dir installers/pyinstaller_hooks/ --name AbacusSoftware --onefile --noconsole -i abacusSoftware/GUI/images/abacus_small.ico test.py

Two folders will be created: build and dist. Inside dist you'll find the .exe file. To create an installer, first install Inno Setup from https://jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php#stable. Then, using the File Explorer, go to the folder installers and double-click installer_builder.iss or open it from Inno Setup if it is already opened. Click on the play icon and then follow the process, which includes the creation of the installer and the installation itself.

The installer will be saved in a folder called Output.

MacOS

Run the following command

pyinstaller --additional-hooks-dir installers/pyinstaller_hooks/ --name AbacusSoftware --onefile --noconsole -i abacusSoftware/GUI/images/Abacus_small.png test.py

Two folders will be created: build and dist. Inside dist you'll find the .app file. This file can be run from a console by executing the command To change the icon of the .app file follow the instructions here https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/06/how-to-change-app-icons-on-macos

Linux

Run the following command

pyinstaller --additional-hooks-dir installers/pyinstaller_hooks/ --name AbacusSoftware --onefile --noconsole -i abacusSoftware/GUI/images/Abacus_small.png test.py

Two folders will be created: build and dist. Inside dist you'll find the executable file. This file can be run from a console by executing the command

./AbacusSoftware

If it doesn't run, make sure it has execute permissions. In case it doesn't run chmod +x AbacusSoftware and then try again. The executable file could be used to create a Desktop entry so it can be lauched as an application (for example in Gnome, an icon could be assigned)

To create an AppImage that can be run from multiple Linux distributions and be launch by double clicking, follow the next steps.

• Create the following folder path: AbacusSoftware.AppDir/usr/bin
• Place the executable inside the bin folder
• Place the icon Abacus_small.png located at abacusSoftware/GUI/images/Abacus_small.png inside AbacusSoftware.AppDir
• Create a file called AbacusSoftware.desktop inside AbacusSoftware.AppDir
• Edit the .desktop file with the following

[Desktop Entry]
Name=AbacusSoftware
Exec=AbacusSoftware
Icon=Abacus_small
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;

• Give execution permisions to the .desktop file: chmod +x AbacusSoftware.desktop
• Create a script called AppRun with the following contents

#!/bin/bash
SELF=$(readlink -f "$0")
HERE=${SELF%/*}
EXEC="${HERE}/usr/bin/AbacusSoftware"
exec "${EXEC}"

• Give execution permisions to the AppRun file: chmod +x AppRun. After this step, the app should run after doing ./AppRun on a Terminal.
• For 64-bit architecture, download appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage from https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/ and give execution permisions to it.
• Place appimagetool outside AbacusSoftware.AppDir and run

ARCH=x86_64 ./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage AbacusSoftware.AppDir

• The file AbacusSoftware-x86_64.AppImage will be created. This file can be opened by double clicking it.

Generating images and icons

In linux, cd into abacusSoftware/GUI/images/, where you'll find the image files that will be used in the application. You'll also find a .qrc file which specifies any image that you want to include. If you want to use new images you'll need to specify their name inside such file. Next execute the following command

pyrcc5 -o __GUI_images__.py images.qrc

This will update the __GUI_images__.py file, which needs to be copied into the folder abacusSoftware and replace the file located there with the same name. Now the image resources can be called from within the code by doing, for example,

splash_pix = QtGui.QPixmap(':/splash.png').scaledToWidth(600)

Fixing pyinstaller:

https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/commit/082078e30aff8f5b8f9a547191066d8b0f1dbb7e

https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/commit/59a233013cf6cdc46a67f0d98a995ca65ba7613a