pysigil

Preference management for small apps.

Quick start

Install pysigil in a virtual environment to make the sigil and pysigil commands available:

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate  # Windows: .venv\Scripts\Activate
pip install -e .  # or `pip install .` for a normal install

sigil --help
# or
pysigil --help
# or
python -m pysigil --help

from pysigil import (
    get_project_directory,
    get_user_directory,
    helpers_for,
)

get_setting, set_setting = helpers_for("pysigil")
project_root = get_project_directory("pysigil")
user_data = get_user_directory("pysigil")

get_setting("ui.color")
set_setting("ui.color", "blue")
# e.g. load a template shipped with the package
(project_root / "templates" / "dialog.ui").read_text()

Once installed, try a few commands:

sigil set ui.color blue --app demo
sigil get ui.color --app demo
sigil export --app demo

The CLI stores data under your user config directory (e.g. ~/.config/sigil/demo/settings.ini), so you can run these commands right from the source tree without creating a separate project. See tests/manual_tests/README.md for more examples.

Typed helper methods are available for convenient access: Sigil.get_int(), get_float(), get_bool(). For package integration details see docs/integration.md.

Policy API

The merge order and write permissions are managed by a configurable ScopePolicy. The default policy prefers project settings over user ones. To inspect or extend the policy:

from pysigil.policy import Scope, ScopePolicy, policy

# clone and add a git-tracked scope
scopes = [*policy._scopes, Scope("git", writable=True)]
git_policy = ScopePolicy(scopes)

# precedence can be switched at runtime
policy.set_store("user", {("pysigil", "policy"): "user_over_project"})

Using the GUI

pysigil ships with a simple graphical editor for viewing and editing preferences. After installation launch it with:

sigil gui

Any providers with existing configuration directories (e.g. ~/.config/sigil/user-custom) are automatically listed in the package selector.

To initialise or inspect the user configuration directory from a small helper interface, run:

sigil config gui

Click Initialize User Custom to create a per-host user-custom section. A confirmation dialog appears and the folder opens (e.g. ~/.config/sigil/user-custom) so you can edit the newly created file.

Package authors can register development defaults via:

sigil register  # alias: `sigil setup`

Launch authoring tools without the editor:

sigil author

Or launch it programmatically:

from pysigil.ui.tk import launch

launch()