Software requirements¶
In order to run Seagull on your machine, you will need to have a bunch of programs installed that Seagull depends on. Some of these programs are for running Seagull itself, some are for developing the skins. This section is divided into subsections so you can skip the parts you do not need at this time. You must, however, cover the Basics section.
Basics¶
At absolute minimum you will need to have Python 3.5 or newer installed. Seagull specifically uses features that were newly introduced in Python 3.5, so older versions will not work (not even older versions in the 3.x series).
If you are on Linux, you should use your distro’s package manager to install
Python. In some distributions (e.g., Arch Linux), the default python
package is Python 3.x. On other distros, default is usually Python 2.x so the
Python 3.x will use a package named python3 or something along those lines.
Windows and Mac users can peruse the download page on python.org.
Once Python is installed, check that you have the correct version. Run the following command in the command line (command prompt):
> python --version
Python 3.5.2
In some instances, you may need to refer to Python 3.5 as python3 or even
python3.5 in the command line:
> python3 --version
Python 3.5.2
Throughout the rest of the guide, when you see python in the command
examples, you will use the command name that worked for you, be it python
or python3 (and the same applies to pip as you will see later on).
Note
If your Linux distro does not ship the latest and greatest version, you will need to figure out a way to get the latest version. For older releases of Ubuntu, for example, follow this advice. Debian has Python 3.5 in the unstable branch. If you are going to eventually deploy Seagull yourself, it would probably be worthwhile to explore these upgrades now.
If your Python install does not come with pip, the Python package manager, you will also need to install pip. The version of the pip package is not critical for using Seagull but asking for its version is a good way to test if it’s installed:
> pip --version
pip 8.1.2 from ..... (python 3.5)
Make sure that it says ‘python 3.5’ in the result. If it says something like
‘python 2.7’ or any version other than 3.5, then you probably installed pip for
the wrong version of Python. For example, on Linux, pip for Python 3.5 would be
in a package named python3-pip or something similar. In some cases, the
command itself may be different (e.g., pip3 instead of pip).
Software needed for skin development¶
If you intend to customize the built-in skins (but not strictly required if you just want to create a completely new skin), you will also need:
- NodeJS and NPM for CoffeeScript support (see this guide)
- Ruby and Ruby Gems for Compass support (see this guide)
To verify the installs:
> npm --version
3.10.3
> gem --version
2.5.1
Exact versions are not really important here. Once you have NodeJS, NPM, Ruby, and Ruby Gems installed, you will need to install CoffeeScript and Compass. To install CoffeeScript with NPM, run this command:
> npm install --global coffee-script
Next install Compass using Ruby Gem:
> gem install compass
You probably want to verify that these tools were installed correctly:
> coffee --version
CoffeeScript version 1.10.0
> compass --version
Compass 1.0.3 (Polaris)
Copyright (c) 2008-2016 Chris Eppstein
Released under the MIT License.
Compass is charityware.
Please make a tax deductable donation for a worthy cause: http://umdf.org/compass
Tools for working on the documentation¶
If you wish to hack at this guide, you will need to install Sphinx and the ReadTheDocs theme for Sphinx:
> pip install sphinx sphinx-rtd-theme
To verify that Sphinx was installed:
> sphinx-build --version
Sphinx (sphinx-build) 1.4.5