Installation¶
There are several ways to install Photini. On Windows you can use an all-in-one installer or you can use MSYS2. On some Linux distributions you might be able to use your package manager to install everything. On other platforms you need to install several dependencies before installing Photini.
All-in-one installer (Windows)¶
The Windows installers create a standalone MSYS2 installation with all the dependencies needed to run Photini. This is a cut-down MSYS2 and Python system, and should not conflict with any other Python version installed on your computer, or any other MSYS2 installation.
Previous installers (from before May 2019) used a “portable Python” system based on WinPython.
If you have a Photini installation from one of these installers you should remove it using the “Programs and Features” control panel item, and ensure the installation folder (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Photini has been removed, before using the new installer.
You can download the latest Windows installer from the GitHub releases page.
Look for the most recent release with a .exe file listed in its “assets”, e.g. photini-win64-2019.5.0.exe.
This is a Windows installer for the latest version of Photini, even if it’s listed under an older release.
There are installers for 32 bit and 64 bit Windows, and they should work on any version since Windows XP.
When you run the installer you will probably get a security warning because the installer is not signed by a recognised authority. This is unavoidable unless I purchase a certificate with which to sign the installer. As I don’t make any money from Photini this is unlikely to happen!
The installer should finish by running the Photini program. If this works then you have successfully installed Photini and can ignore the rest of these instructions. If not, see the troubleshooting section below.
Upgrading all-in-one installation¶
Before upgrading Photini you should check the GitHub releases page to see if a new Windows installer has been released since you last downloaded it. If there is a new installer available then you should use it to create a fresh installation, after using the “Programs and Features” control panel item to uninstall the old version of Photini.
To upgrade an existing installation you need to run an MSYS2 “command shell”.
Open the folder where Photini is installed (probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Photini) and run the mingw64.exe program in the msys2 folder (use mingw32.exe if you have a 32-bit installation).
This program needs to be run as administrator.
Use this command to upgrade Photini:
pip3 install -U photini
If you would like to upgrade or install the Flickr uploader components you can also use pip:
pip3 install -U flickrapi keyring
Installing the spell checker components uses pacman:
pacman -S $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-gspell
You’ll also need to install one or more dictionaries. To get a list of available dictionaries:
pacman -Ss dictionar
Note the use of dictionar as a search term - it matches dictionary or dictionaries.
To install the French dictionaries:
pacman -S $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-aspell-fr
The MSYS2 repositories only provide dictionaries for a few languages, but it is possible to install from other sources. See the configuration page for more information.
When you’ve finished you can close the command shell with the exit command.
MSYS2 (Windows)¶
An alternative to the Windows standalone installer is to use a full installation of MSYS2. This is not that difficult to do, but will need almost 3 GBytes of disc space, and half an hour of your time. Installing Photini this way ensures its dependencies are up to date and should be easier to update in future.
The following instructions assume you are using 64-bit Windows.
If you are on a 32-bit machine you’ll need to install the 32-bit (i686 instead of x86_64) versions of everything.
Note that the 32-bit version of MSYS2 is no longer supported.
First install MSYS2 and update the packages as described on the MSYS2 homepage.
You do not need to install it as C:\msys64, but you probably should avoid using spaces in the directory name.
You should also avoid installing in C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) so you don’t have to use administrator privileges to make any changes.
Run the C:\msys64\mingw64.exe shell and use pacman to install Photini’s dependencies:
pacman -S $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-{gexiv2,python-gobject,python-pyqt5,python-pip,python-pillow}
This will take some time as over 300 MByte will be downloaded.
(The Qt package itself is 175 MByte!)
When it’s finished you can free up some disc space with the pacman -Scc command.
Use pip to install Photini:
pip install photini flickrapi keyring gpxpy
Then run Photini:
python -m photini.editor
If you want to use Photini’s spelling checker then you need to install Gspell and one or more dictionaries, for example:
pacman -S $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-{gspell,aspell-en,aspell-fr}
The FFmpeg package is needed to read metadata from video files:
pacman -S $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-ffmpeg
To create a desktop shortcut to run Photini, right-click on the desktop and select New -> Shortcut.
Set “location of the item” to the following:
C:\msys64\mingw64\bin\pythonw.exe -m photini.editor
Choose a suitable name for the shortcut, such as Photini, and click “finish”.
Note the use of pythonw.exe rather than python.exe.
This runs Photini without opening a shell window.
Package manager (some Linux distributions)¶
Note
These Linux packages are maintained by other people and may not install the latest version of Photini. You may also need to install further dependencies, as described below.
Ubuntu and derived systems¶
Dariusz Duma (https://launchpad.net/~dhor) has added Photini to his PPA (personal package archive). See the instructions at http://linuxg.net/how-to-install-photini-15-01-1-on-ubuntu-14-10-ubuntu-14-04-and-derivative-systems/.
Pascal Mons (https://launchpad.net/~anton+) also has a PPA with many photo applications, including Photini. See https://launchpad.net/~anton+/+archive/ubuntu/photo-video-apps/.
OpenSUSE¶
Photini is part of the official release of Leap 15.0 and Tumbleweed versions and can be installed with YaST. For older versions it is available from the Packman community repository. It can be installed by clicking on this link: http://packman.links2linux.org/install/Photini
Piecemeal installation¶
This is the most time consuming way to install Photini. Different operating systems have different names for the same packages. If you run into problems, please let me know (email jim@jim-easterbrook.me.uk) and once we’ve worked out what needs to be done I’ll be able to improve these instructions.
Essential dependencies¶
These are all required for Photini to be usable.
In general you should use your operating system’s package manager to install these, to avoid breaking other software installed on your computer by installing an incompatible version.
If a package is not available from the system’s package manager (or is not already in use by other software) then you can use pip to install it from PyPI.
You may need to use pip3 rather than pip to install Python3 packages.
| Package | Minimum version | Typical Linux package name | PyPI package name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Python | 2.7 or 3.2 | python3 | |
| PyQt | 4 (5 preferred) | python3-qt5 or python3-pyqt5 | PyQt5 |
| QtWebEngine or QtWebKit [1] | python3-pyqt5.qtwebkit | ||
| gexiv2 [2] | 0.10 | typelib-1_0-GExiv2-0_10 or gir1.2-gexiv2-0.10 | |
| PyGObject [3] | python3-gobject or python3-gi | ||
| pgi [3] | 0.0.8 | pgi | |
| appdirs | 1.3 | python3-appdirs | appdirs |
| requests | 2.4 | python3-requests | requests |
| six | 1.5 | python3-six | six |
[1] Photini needs the Python version of either QtWebEngine or QtWebKit. One of these may already be included in your PyQt installation. QtWebEngine is preferred, but is not available on all operating systems. If you have both you can choose which one Photini uses by editing its configuration file.
[2] Several libraries are needed to access photograph metadata from Python. Exiv2 is the core “C” library. gexiv2 is a GObject wrapper around the Exiv2 library. It has extra “introspection bindings” that allow it to be used by other languages. PyGObject or pgi provide a Python interface to the introspection bindings of the GObject wrapper around the Exiv2 library. Got that?
[3] pgi is a pure Python alternative to PyGObject that may be more reliable on some systems, despite its author’s warnings about its experimental status. If pgi doesn’t work on your system you can go back to using PyGObject by uninstalling pgi:
sudo pip uninstall pgi
Installing Photini¶
The easiest way to install the latest release of Photini is with the pip command:
sudo pip install photini
This will install Photini and any Python packages it requires. You can also use pip to install the optional dependencies when you install Photini:
sudo pip install photini[flickr,google,importer]
If you prefer to use the development version you can use git to clone the GitHub repository or download it as a zip or tar.gz file and then unpack it. Then set your working directory to the Photini top level directory before continuing.
You can run Photini without installing it, using the run_photini.py script:
python src/run_photini.py
This can be useful during development as the script should also work within an IDE.
The development version can be built and installed in the usual way:
python setup.py build
sudo python setup.py install
You will need to install the optional dependencies separately.
If you’d like to test or use one of Photini’s translation files you will need to update and compile the translations before installing or running Photini:
python setup.py lupdate
python setup.py lrelease
This requires the Qt “linguist” software to be installed. See Testing your translation for more information about using translations.
Optional dependencies¶
Some of Photini’s features are optional - if you don’t install these libraries Photini will work but the relevant feature will not be available.
As before, you should use your system’s package manager to install these if possible, otherwise use pip.
The system package manager names will probably have python- or python3- prefixes.
| Feature | Dependencies |
|---|---|
| Spell check | Gspell (e.g. typelib-1_0-Gspell-1_0, gir1.2-gspell-1) or pyenchant 1.6+ |
| Flickr upload | flickrapi 2.0+, keyring 7.0+ |
| Google Photos upload | requests-oauthlib 1.0+, keyring 7.0+ |
| Thumbnail creation[1] | FFmpeg, Pillow 2.0+ |
| Import photos from camera[2] | python-gphoto2 0.10+ |
| Import GPS logger file | gpxpy 1.3.5+ |
[1] Photini can create thumbnail images using PyQt, but better quality ones can be made by installing Pillow. FFmpeg is needed to generate thumbnails for video files, but it can also make them for some still image formats.
[2]Photini can import pictures from any directory on your computer (e.g. a memory card) but on Linux and MacOS systems it can also import directly from a camera if python-gphoto2 is installed. Installation of python-gphoto2 will require the “development headers” versions of Python and libgphoto2. You should be able to install these with your system package manager.
Running Photini¶
If the installation has been successful you should be able to run Photini from the “Start” menu (Windows) or application launcher (Linux).
Troubleshooting¶
If Photini fails to run for some reason you may be able to find out why by trying to run it in a command window.
On Windows you need to open the folder where Photini is installed (probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Photini) and run the mingw64.exe program in the msys2 folder.
This program needs to be run as administrator.
(Use mingw32.exe if you have a 32-bit installation.)
On Linux you can run any terminal or console program.
Start the Photini program as follows. If it fails to run you should get some diagnostic information:
python3 -m photini.editor
If you need more help, please email jim@jim-easterbrook.me.uk.
It would probably be helpful to copy any diagnostic messages into your email.
I would also find it useful to know what version of Photini and some of its dependencies you are running.
You can find out with the --version option:
python3 -m photini.editor --version
Some versions of PyQt may fail to work properly with Photini, even causing a crash at startup. If this happens you may be able to circumvent the problem by editing the Photini configuration file before running Photini.
Mailing list¶
For more general discussion of Photini (e.g. release announcements, questions about using it, problems with installing, etc.) there is an email list or forum hosted on Google Groups. You can view previous messages and ask to join the group at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/photini.
Photini documentation¶
If you would like to have a local copy of the Photini documentation, and have downloaded or cloned the source files, you can install Sphinx and use setup.py to “compile” the documentation:
sudo pip install sphinx
python -B setup.py build_sphinx
Open doc/html/index.html with a web browser to read the local documentation.
Comments or questions? Please subscribe to the Photini mailing list https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/photini and let us know.