Category Archives: Open Source Software

Python, VPython and Enthought

For those who are starting to work with Python this may be useful.

I have been trying to use VPython for a while with the Enthought distro to develop Python software. (I’m using 32 bit Python 2.7 Enthought distro for Mac OSX 10.6.8).

But for some reason the VPython package will not be installed if the Python distribution in your mac is not the official one (e.g. oficial Python 2.7 installed in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7)

The Enthought distro installs itself in

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current

as a symbolic link to

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/7.2

Which is not right for VPython because it expects the default link to be ‘2.7’.

Ok, what I did was to delete the official 2.7 Python distro and create a symbolic link ‘2.7’ to the ‘7.2’ EDP version. And it works great!

To create the symbolic link just open the terminal and do:
>> cd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions
>> sudo ln -s 7.2 2.7

Now open Python:
>> python

and type
from visual import *
sphere()

you should see a sphere draw like this:

Now Python works well with Enthought.

References
http://vpython.org/
http://www.enthought.com/

LibreOffice Visio Importer coming up

Many people are switching from Windows to Linux and Macs. The more people do this migration, the more everyone realizes that there is a big need to create tools that reutilize old Microsoft Windows files… like Visio files. When I learned that people are working on a LibreOffice Visio importer I had a ding in my head. This is AWESOME! I’ll be able to see my old visio files and actually reutilize them without having to go on a Windows computer. Yeah!

Fridrich Strba in one of the developers of this great tool. He says: “For those that have big piles of Visio documents on their disks, but cannot read on their favourite Linux distribution: Your pain is coming to an end. The LibreOffice Visio Import filter will be part of LibreOffice 3.5 release, which will be the next major release early next year.” That is, 2012. So it’s coming up really soon.

He also adds that if people want to try this feature we can download the LibreOffice 3.5 daily builds from here: http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/

Opensource is changing the way we use computers! For the best 🙂

By the way, I’m using LibreOffice  for only a week now and it’s just great. I hope it will come to a point I don’t need to use any other software for documentation or presentations or spreadsheets or drawing or… ok, I’ll just say that it’s a great tool already and is very promising. You should download it and give it a try! http://www.libreoffice.org/

References