Unable to run without installing

[jsbien]

From README.rst:

Alternatively, you can use didjvu without installing it, straight out of an unpacked source tarball or a VCS checkout.

For the repository cloned today I get (the prompt is misleading, this is actually Debian bookworm, i.e. stable):

jsbien@JSBbuster:~/work/didjvu/Froebel_new/didjvu/didjvu$ python3 didjvu.py
ImportError: cannot import name 'cli' from partially initialized module 'didjvu' (most likely due to a circular import) (/home/jsbien/work/didjvu/Froebel_new/didjvu/didjvu/didjvu.py)
Am I doing something wrong?

[FriedrichFroebel]

You should not run from the didjvu.py file, but from the actual module when using it without installation:

1. git clone [email protected]:FriedrichFroebel/didjvu.git
2. cd didjvu
3. Install dependencies (at least Pillow and gamera).
4. python -m didjvu --help (assuming that you use a virtual environment with Python 3 or your default interpreter is Python 3, otherwise replace python with python3).

[jsbien]

Looks like my gamera installation somehow vanished :-(
An attempt to reinstall it with pip, pip3 and pipx fail. BTW, I get the same errors when trying to install directly didjvu with pip, pip3 and pipx.

[FriedrichFroebel]

For now, Gamera has to be installed manually, due to the package on PyPI being outdated and only providing a Windows binary (see hsnr-gamera/gamera-4#65 where we try to improve this). For installing it, just follow the manual steps:

1. git clone [email protected]:hsnr-gamera/gamera-4.git
2. cd gamera-4
3. python -m pip install . --verbose

[jsbien]

Thanks for your help!

git clone [email protected]:hsnr-gamera/gamera-4.git

This doesn't work for me, but this works:
git clone https://github.com/hsnr-gamera/gamera-4.git
Unfortunately
python3 -m pip install . --verbose
gives
error: externally-managed-environment
...
You can override this, at the risk of breaking your Python installation or OS, by passing --break-system-packages.

[FriedrichFroebel]

My clone command only works if SSH is configured, otherwise you need the HTTPS version, yes.

Usually, you want to do everything in a virtual environment:

1. Create it: python3 -m virtualenv venv
2. Enter it: source venv/bin/activate
3. Use as the global environment, for example installing packages etc.
4. To exit it: deactivate

You can use the global environment as well, but this is not recommended (any more), if you use the --user flag for pip or run each installation with sudo.

[jsbien]

Thank again for your help. Looks like my problems are solved.

BTW, instead

python3 -m virtualenv venv

there should be e.g.
python3 -m venv venv

[FriedrichFroebel]

This depends on your preferences. venv is the stdlib module, virtualenv an alternative with more features: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41573587/what-is-the-difference-between-venv-pyvenv-pyenv-virtualenv-virtualenvwrappe

[jsbien]

I will look into it. For python3 -m virtualenv venv I've got /usr/bin/python3: No module named virtualenv...

[FriedrichFroebel]

Depending on your setup, you will have to install the corresponding OS or global Python package: https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/python3-virtualenv https://pypi.org/project/virtualenv/