Installation

There are a few different ways to install PyDM. The easiest way to install it from scratch is probably using the Anaconda system. If you have an existing python environment, and want to install PyDM for use with that, you can do that with pip.

Please note, this guide is written with Unix in mind.

Installing PyDM and Prerequisites with Anaconda

After installing Anaconda (see https://www.anaconda.com/download/), create a new environment for PyDM:

$ conda create -n pydm-environment python=3.6 pyqt=5 pip numpy scipy six psutil pyqtgraph -c conda-forge
$ source activate pydm-environment

Once the environment is setup, continue on with the instructions in the Installing PyDM with PIP section below. You do not need to build the prerequisites manually.

Installing the Prerequisites

Qt 5

First, download the source code for your platform. Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the archive somewhere, its time to configure the build. To see all the options, run:

$ ./configure --help

Then, once you are ready:

$ ./configure <your options here>
$ make -j4 && make install

SIP

You’ll need SIP to build PyQt5. Download it, and extract the archive. Then, follow the instructions to build and install SIP.

PyQt5

Download the source code for PyQt5, and extract the archive. Follow the provided instructions to build and install it. Note that you may need to manually set the ‘–qmake’ option to point to the qmake binary you created when you built Qt5.

Installing PyDM with PIP

PyDM is not currently part of the Python Package Index (PyPI), so you’ll have to first download a release of PyDM, or clone PyDM’s git repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/slaclab/pydm.git

After you download PyDM, enter the directory where you saved it, and run:

$ pip install .[all]

This will download and install all the necessary dependencies, then will install PyDM.

Setting Environment Variables

PyDM has several environment variables that let you configure its behavior, and where it looks for certain types of files. To ensure these variables are always set, you probably want to add them to your shell startup file (like ~/.bashrc, if you are using bash).

Designer Plugin Path

If you want to use Designer to build displays with PyDM widgets, you’ll need to add the PyDM install location to the PYQTDESIGNERPATH environment variable. This directory might be buried pretty deep, depending on how Python is installed on your system. For example, mine lives at ‘/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pydm/’.

Default Data Source

PyDM lets you get data from multiple data sources. To accomplish this, all addresses are prefixed by a ‘scheme’, much like a URL. For example, the EPICS plugin that comes with PyDM registers the scheme ‘ca’, and to specify an address to a PV, you’d write ‘ca://PVNAME’. Many sites use one data source primarily, and if you’d like to avoid always writing out the same scheme, you can set the PYDM_DEFAULT_PROTOCOL environment variable. For example, to use the EPICS plugin by default, set PYDM_DEFAULT_PROTOCOL to ‘ca’. Now you can use ‘PVNAME’ as an address without specifying that you want to use channel access.

Troubleshooting PyDM Widgets in Designer

For Qt Designer to see the PyDM widgets, the PyQt Designer Plugin needs to be installed. This is usually done as part of the PyQt install process, but some package managers (like homebrew on OSX) don’t install the plugin when PyQt is installed. In that case, you’ll probably need to install PyQt from source. Follow the directions from the PyQt documentation: http://pyqt.sourceforge.net/Docs/PyQt5/installation.html#building-and-installing-from-source