scitex-etc 0.2.1

Small cross-cutting utilities: interactive keyboard input (wait_key, count), parameter-grid iteration (count_grids, yield_grids), regex string search (search), and media handling (detect/classify/show)

scitex-etc

Interactive keyboard input utilities for the SciTeX ecosystem.

Full Documentation · uv pip install scitex-etc[all]

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Problem and Solution

#	Problem	Solution
1	Scripts that pause for a keypress need raw-stdin + termios gymnastics — 15 lines of OS-dependent boilerplate	wait_key() / count() — one import; handles Linux/macOS/Windows; falls back cleanly when stdin isn't a TTY

Installation

pip install scitex-etc

Architecture

scitex-etc/
├── src/scitex_etc/
│   ├── _wait_key.py     # cross-platform raw-stdin keypress
│   └── _count.py        # countdown helper
└── tests/

1 Interfaces

Python API

import multiprocessing
from scitex_etc import wait_key, count

# Run the counter in a subprocess, wait for 'q' to stop it.
p = multiprocessing.Process(target=count)
p.start()
wait_key(p)  # Blocks until 'q' is pressed, then terminates the process

Media handling (scitex_etc.media.render)

from scitex_etc.media import render

# Classify a file by its extension
render.classify("fig.png")          # {"type": "image", "path": "fig.png", "ext": ".png"}

# Detect media refs in tool output
render.detect("Saved /proj/fig.png", root_path="/proj")
# [{"type": "image", "path": "fig.png", "ext": ".png"}]

# Render to a target: terminal (OSC overlay), chat, or markdown
render.show("fig.png", target="markdown")  # "![fig.png](fig.png)"

Also available as a CLI (python -m scitex_etc.media.render show|classify|detect) and as MCP tools (scitex_etc.media.render.mcp_server).

Demo

flowchart LR
    User[User keypress] --> TTY{stdin is TTY?}
    TTY -- yes --> Termios[termios raw mode]
    TTY -- no --> Fallback[readline fallback]
    Termios --> Key[key string]
    Fallback --> Key

Quick Start

import multiprocessing
from scitex_etc import wait_key, count

# count() prints an incrementing counter forever (1 per second).
# Run it in a subprocess and use wait_key() to stop on 'q'.
p = multiprocessing.Process(target=count)
p.start()
wait_key(p)

Part of SciTeX

scitex-etc is part of SciTeX. Install via the umbrella with pip install scitex[etc] to use as scitex.etc (Python) or scitex etc ... (CLI).

Four Freedoms for Research

0. The freedom to run your research anywhere — your machine, your terms.
1. The freedom to study how every step works — from raw data to final manuscript.
2. The freedom to redistribute your workflows, not just your papers.
3. The freedom to modify any module and share improvements with the community.

AGPL-3.0 — because we believe research infrastructure deserves the same freedoms as the software it runs on.

License

AGPL-3.0

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