Using pyXede on Windows

Ok tough guy, so you want to use my super-cool Xede software on yo' momma's operating system? It's not ideal, but it is possible. There's two ways to get up and running:

1. Use the source

   This is by far the preferred method of installation. By installing the source code you get full access the development version of the software as well as a much smaller download when you want to upgrade a new version. For example, at the time of writing the latest release is 0.4. The source file for this release is less than 20kb!

   There's quite a few steps involved in getting things going, but don't be dismayed. Most of them you only have to do once. Here goes...

   1. Install Python 2.4.1. Python is a powerful programming language and the one used to write pyXede. This is the entire python development environment. You can use a different version if you prefer, but you must match the version to the one used in wxPython. You only have to install this once.
   2. Install wxPython 2.6. wxPython is a cross-platform graphical toolkit. It allows programmers to write graphical applications that run on many different systems. Again, install only once.
   3. Install win32all. This is a support library for Pyserial. Install and forget! :)
   4. Install PySerial. This is a general purpose serial port library needed to talk to the Xede. Install only once.
   5. Install Gnuplot. Gnuplot is a very high quality, free, data plotting program. There isn't an install tool provided with Gnuplot (it was originally written for Unix), but all you need to do is unzip the .zip file and place the contents somewhere convenient like the desktop or C:\. Do this only once.
   6. Almost done, now download a pyXede release from the webpage. Decompress it and look for a file called wxgui.py. Away you go! If you want to try a different version of pyXede, just download a new release file.
   
   
   
2. Use a built package

   It is possible to build a package containing the source code and all the necessary libraries, but honestly this wastes space and isn't too useful. If you want me to fix bugs that you find, use the source. That being said, I have created a few of these built packages and I can distribute them if people are interested. Email me.