zyto

Download an image from an HTTP(S) URL, open it with the default viewer — and on Windows, run a tiny helper that shows a hello dialog.

pip install zyto

from zyto import download_and_open_image, show_hello

print(download_and_open_image("https://example.com/image.png"))
# {'file_path': '…/image.png', 'opened': True}

show_hello()            # Windows: a 4 KB MessageBox that says "hello"
show_hello("hey you")   # custom text

CLI

zyto hello                 # shows the dialog
zyto hello "hey" -w        # custom text, wait until closed
zyto image <url> --open    # download and open
zyto info                  # version + helper path
zyto-hello                 # same as `zyto hello`

The helper

zyto/Helper.exe is compiled from helper/Helper.cs by helper/build-helper.ps1 using the .NET Framework compiler that ships with Windows. Its entire body is one MessageBoxW call:

MessageBoxW(IntPtr.Zero, text, "zyto", MB_OK | MB_ICONINFORMATION);

It is ~4 KB, unsigned-but-open-source, not packed, not encrypted, and it is run in place from site-packages — no copy into %TEMP%, no obfuscation, no network. Read the source, then read the binary; they match.

On Linux and macOS the Python API works normally and show_hello() returns False (there is no Win32 dialog to show).

Build

# 1. compile the helper (needs only .NET Framework 4.x, present on Windows)
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File helper\build-helper.ps1

# 2. build wheel + sdist
python -m build

By default pip install zyto is silent. If you want the dialog to also fire once after install, build with the hook:

$env:ZYTO_HOOK = "1"
python tools\build.py      # adds zyto.pth to the wheel

That variant runs zyto._hook.fire_once() on every interpreter start-up and shows the dialog once per version (marker file in %TEMP%). Keep in mind that public indexes scan wheels for start-up hooks — an upload containing a .pth that spawns a process is very likely to be rejected or removed. The default (no hook) build is the one that survives review.

API

Requires Python 3.8 or newer. MIT.