README.md

Shyft

v0.1

June, 2024

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Introduction

Shyft is a shift-logging GUI utility designed to help data annotators more effectively track and manage their service and billing records. It uses the tkinter GUI framework, which, as of this writing, is part of Python's standard library.

Quickstart Installation Guide

You can install Shyft via a number of methods, but the easiest, by far, are the pre-packaged Shyft.dmg (for macOS users) or ShyftSetup.exe (for Windows users).

macOS

If you're using macOS, you can install Shyft by downloading Shyft.dmg, opening it, and then dragging and dropping the Shyft.app file into the Applications folder.

Windows

If you're using Windows, you can install Shyft by downloading and running the ShyftSetup.exe file. The installation wizard will guide you through the setup process. Once it's complete, you can run the program from the Start menu.

Linux

Currently, there are no package installers available for Linux. Please see the instructions for building from source if you plan to use Shyft on a Linux system.

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Building Shyft from Source

If you'd like to contribute to the code base or build the program from source (e.g, to troubleshoot installation errors), follow these steps:

1. Open your system's terminal.

   • macOS: Simultaneously press the command key and space bar to open the Spotlight search field. Type "terminal", and then select Terminal.app.
   • Windows: Simultaneously press the Windows and 'R' keys to open the Run dialog. Type "cmd", and then press enter to open Command Prompt.

2. Navigate to the directory to which you would like to clone the Shyft repository. For simplicity, we'll assume you're cloning it to your home directory, which is usually where most systems set users' locations upon initialization of the login shell.

3. Clone the GitHub repository to your local machine. From Terminal (on macOS) or cmd (on Windows), run the following command.

   git clone https://github.com/kosmolebryce/shyft.git

4. After the repository has been cloned to your machine, navigate into the program's source code directory.

   cd shyft/src/shyft

5. At this point, you have a few options:

   • If you'd like to run the program without installing it, you can invoke it directly with your Python interpreter by entering the following command.

     python shyft.py

     This will initialize the GUI, streaming debugging/logging statements as output to the terminal while the program is in use.

   • If you'd like to build and install the program, there are lots of tools that you can use. The most popular option for macOS is probably py2app, while the most popular options for Windows are probably pyinstaller and cxfreeze. You can install any of these options by using Python's package manager pip, which should have been installed alongside your Python interpreter as part of Python's installation process. For example, if you'd like to install pyinstaller, you should run the following command from your command line/terminal:

     pip install pyinstaller

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NOTE: This repository is under active development. Because Shyft is a decidedly new project, documentation is rather sparse at the moment. We're working hard to compile a robust corpus of helpful, high-quality resources for our users' reference, so we encourage you to check back with the project's GitHub page every now and then.

Thanks for your support!