ASTRA GUI

ASTRA GUI provides a desktop interface for preparing and running ASTRA workflows. It ships ready-to-use notebook pages for common time-dependent and time-independent calculations, wraps the ASTRA command-line tools, and keeps input templates and run configurations organized.

Requirements

• Python 3.11–3.13 (CPython)
• Tkinter (GUI toolkit used by the application)
• ASTRA binaries available on your PATH

Install Tkinter

Tkinter is bundled with some Python distributions but not all. The GUI will not start without it.

macOS

• If you installed Python from python.org, Tkinter is already included—no extra action required.

• For Homebrew Python, install the matching Tk bindings:

  brew install python-tk
  

  Homebrew publishes versioned formulae (for example python-tk@3.12); install the one that matches the Python you are using and follow any brew link instructions it prints.

Linux

• Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives:

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install python3-tk
  

• Fedora/RHEL and derivatives:

  sudo dnf install python3-tkinter
  

• Arch Linux:

  sudo pacman -S tk
  

Refer to your distribution’s package manager if it uses different names.

Verify Tkinter Is Available

After installation, confirm Tkinter works by launching the self-test. A small window labeled “Tk” should appear.

python3 -m tkinter

If you receive ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_tkinter', reinstall Tkinter for the interpreter you are using.

Installation

Install the latest release from PyPI:

pip install astra_gui

Launching the GUI

Once installed, run ASTRA GUI from the terminal:

astra_gui

Add the --debug flag to enable verbose logging if you are diagnosing issues.

Configure ASTRA Paths

ASTRA GUI shells out to the ASTRA binaries, so it must be able to find them through environment variables such as PATH, ASTRA_HOME, or any custom variables your installation requires.

• When you connect to a machine with ssh, Bash starts as a login shell. Login shells read ~/.bash_profile (or ~/.profile) first and skip ~/.bashrc unless it is explicitly sourced.
• If you maintain custom PATH entries for ASTRA (or for companion tools like DALTON, LUCIA, SCATCI, or PRISM) in ~/.bashrc, move those exports to ~/.bash_profile so they are available when ASTRA GUI launches within a login shell.

Remote Connections and Notifications

ASTRA GUI supports SSH-backed runs and completion alerts. Configure remote access through Settings ▸ SSH; add the target host, user, and key to your ~/.ssh/config so the dialog can reuse those settings. Enable run notifications via Settings ▸ Notifications, then select Email or NTFY and supply the destination address or topic to receive status updates.

Detailed walkthroughs live in the GUI under Help in the menu bar.

Developer Setup

Clone the repository and install the project in development mode:

git clone https://github.com/Faria22/astra_gui.git
cd astra_gui
pip install -e .[dev]

Use Hatch to run the standard quality checks:

hatch run all   # Ruff, basedpyright, and pytest

License

astra_gui is distributed under the terms of the MIT license.