Install GNUe CVS Snapshot on Windows mini-HOWTO

Jan Ischebeck <mail@jan-ischebeck.de>

v0.03, 2003-11-22

This mini HOWTO describes how to get the GNUenterprise packages release 0.5.x to work on Windows 98 in combination with for example PostgreSQL or MySQL)

• get and install the file from http://www.egenix.com/files/python/egenix-mx-base-2.0.4.win32-py2.2.exe
• which can be found at: http://www.egenix.com/files/python/eGenix-mx-Extensions.html#Download-mxBASE

3. The uidriver packages (you need at least one)

3.1 wxPython (required for wxwindows uidriver)

• get wxPython Binaries from http://www.wxpython.org/download.php#binaries
• I would recommend to use the normal version, but possibly the unicode builds work too.
• Use the version for python2.2

3.2 gtk2 (required for gtk2 uidriver)

• get the installer from http://www.pcpm.ucl.ac.be/~gustin/win32_ports/ or the source from ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/python/v2.0/
• don't forget to install the gtk2 runtime, which is required too. (get it from http://www.dropline.net/gtk/download.php)
• now you have to add the gtk2 library path for python, so:
• without REGEDIT (you can add the python path too):

   on win98/ME:
   - append C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\lib;c:\python22\python
   - to your set path line in c:\autoexec.bat

   on w2k/XP:
   - Start menu ->Control Panel->System->Special
   - in Environment Variables
   - append C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\lib;c:\python22\python to your path 

• the same with regedit (didn't worked with gnue forms, but worked with normal python execution.)

    1. open regedit
    2. add new key called "Path" with content "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\lib"
       to both "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\Python.exe"
and
       "....PythonWin.exe"

• now you can test for working gtk2 by clicking on python.exe in C:\python and writing

     import gtk [ENTER]

     it should not raise any error

3.3 win32all (required for win32 uidriver)

• load win32all package from http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/win32/Downloads.html
• should be build 152 or so.

4. Database driver for python

4.1 Mysql driver

• fetch from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python

4.2 Postgresql driver

• there are different ones: I recommend the one from http://pypgsql.sourceforge.net/

4.3 Firebird/Interbase driver

• get it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/kinterbasdb/

5 The GNUe Tools

5.1 Preparations

• fetch it from http://www.gnuenterprise.org/downloads/hourly.php
• store it and unzip the archive

Then:

• create the following script (you can do it with notepad and store the file as install.bat)

     C:\python22\python.exe setup.py install

• you should replace C:\python2.2 with the path where you installed python
• store that file in the subdirectory gnue-common of the unzipped cvs snapshot
• copy and paste the file to the rest of the snapshot subdirs (gnue-forms, gnue-designer ....)

5.2 Install

• switch into gnue-common and double click on that 'install.bat' file you created. Now gnue-common should be installed.

Repeat these steps for the modules GNUe-Designer, GNUe-Forms, GNUe-AppServer and GNUe-Navigator

5.3 Convinence

• create a batch file "gnue-forms" with the following content in the scripts subdirectory of your python installation:

         C:\python22\python C:\python22\Scripts\gnue-forms %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

• do the same step for: GNUe-Designer, GNUe-Forms, GNUe-AppServer and GNUe-Navigator
• you can then create links to these files on your desktop or in the programm menu
• you should double click on a forms file f.e. intro.gfd in gnue-forms/samples/intro and assosiate it with the gnue-forms.bat script

6. Configuring GNUe

GNUe provides a few sample config files which can be used to set it up for your system. These are located in etc in your Python directory.

• Open C:\Python22\etc
• rename sample.connections.conf to connections.conf
• rename sample.gnue.conf to gnue.conf
• rename sample.report-filters.conf to report-filters.conf

6.1 Connections.conf

Next connections.conf needs to be setup so it can connect to your database. There are some examples in that file, alter one to suit your needs and comment out the rest. Mine looks like this:

   [test]
   comment = Test Database
   provider = postgresql
   host = localhost
   dbname = test

After this its possible to run the designer and connect to the database and create your first form using the wizard.

6.2 gnue.conf

• You can switch between different UI driver by passing the -u option on the command line or by setting DefaultUI in gnue.conf.

7. Update

• If you want to update GNUE, than just load and unzip the newest "hourly" or "nightly" snapshot. And exectute the installation scripts again.

• In case of big changes in CVS, you possibly have to delete the directory C:\python22\lib\site-packages\gnue before upgrading.