Use cases

Contents

Generally, you will use the command-line interface (CLI) of the pymetacode package, i.e. typing commands on a terminal, probably from within your IDE while programming. Hence, the use cases described here focus entirely on this user interface.

Of course, you could use the API of the actual code creating code that is contained in the pymetacode.coding module. However, this is only useful for rather special purposes. For details, see the API documentation.

General usage

The package provides a command pymeta (by means of a console-script entry point) available from the command line given the pymetacode package is installed. This command comes with built-in help and follows a rather simple scheme:

pymeta <command> <option1> ...

The number of options available and required depends on the type of command used. The design goal is an intuitive and robust user interface with feedback and help built-in and a “grammar” that feels natural.

Getting help for a command

If you are in doubt how to use the pymeta command, we’ve got you covered:

pymeta
pymeta help

are two equivalent commands that display some general help. The result of either of these commands looks like this:

General usage:
    pymeta <command> <option1> ...

Possible commands are:
    write
    add
    create
    help

To get more details for a command, type:
    pymeta help <command>

Furthermore, you can get help for particular commands, too:

pymeta help create

would provide you with help specifically for the “create” command, like this:

Usage for create command:
    pymeta create package from <config>

Prerequisite for this command is an existing configuration stored in
the file given as <config> (a YAML file). Use

    pymeta write config to <filename>

to create a config file in YAML format and populate the values
according to your needs.

Furthermore, if you make a mistake, usually, the context-specific help will be displayed for you as well.

Creating a package

The first step when creating a new package is to write a config file that can be filled with sensible content afterwards:

pymeta write config to mypackage_config.yaml

This would write the default configuration to “mypackage_config.yaml”. You may want to have a look at the details of the configuration file. Change all values in this file according to your needs. Afterwards, you can create the basic structure of your new project:

pymeta create package from mypackage_config.yaml

Now, you have a complete package that is installable and deployable. If you would like to know what directories and files have been created, have a look at the package directory structure. Next is to add some modules to your newly created package.

But before you add modules to your new package, you may want to make yourself familiar with the (helper) files created and double-check that the CITATION.cff file contains correct contents. In particular, check the author names in there, as the CITATION.cff format separates given and family names, whereas setup.py (and the pymetacode configuration file) do not. Furthermore, you may want to add your ORCID.

Hint

You can even use a lazy form of the first command, namely

pymeta write config

This will result in a configuration file with the default name package_config.yaml.

Adding modules, classes, functions

All following commands need to be issued from within the root directory of your new package.

pymeta add module mymodule

will add a module “mymodule” to your package, together with a “test_mymodule” module in the “tests” subdirectory. And even better, the API documentation will be updated as well for you.

Time to add a class to your new module:

pymeta add class MyClass to mymodule

Here, again, the class will be added to “mymodule” and a test class added to “test_mymodule”. Similarly, you can add a function:

pymeta add function my_function to mymodule

Again, function and test class will be added to your package.

In both cases, class and function, a minimum documentation header will be created as well, just to make it easier to properly document your code.

Adding a GUI and GUI windows

All following commands need to be issued from within the root directory of your package.

pymeta add gui

will add the scaffold (directory structure, files, documentation, configuration in setup.py) necessary for adding a graphical user interface (GUI) to your package. Note that Qt6 and the PySide6 Qt bindings are used.

At the same time, a first window, named mainwindow, will be added, together with a very basic template of the UI file used by the Qt Designer to layout your window.

Adding additional windows is as simple as

pymeta add window mysubwindow

As windows are always suffixed with “window”, you are not required to add the suffix “window”, but in case you do, it will be handled accordingly.

Hence, the same window as above will get added with the command

pymeta add window mysub

Therefore, use whichever way you are more comfortable with.

The same strategy applies for GUI widgets. To add a GUI widget, just type

pymeta add widget fancywidget

As widgets are always suffixed with “widget”, you are not required to add the suffix “widget”, but in case you do, it will be handled accordingly.

Hence, the same widget as above will get added with the command

pymeta add widget fancy

Therefore, use whichever way you are more comfortable with.

Again, if you want to add dialogs, follow the same pattern:

pymeta add dialog fancydialog

As dialogs are always suffixed with “dialog”, you are not required to add the suffix “dialog”, but in case you do, it will be handled accordingly.

Hence, the same dialog as above will get added with the command

pymeta add dialog fancy

Therefore, use whichever way you are more comfortable with.