To Do List

• GUI
• snappy
• Documentation
  • More hyperlinks
  • Make screencast
• Tasks for another day:
  • Fix plink DT code issue for links and snap
  • Splittings
  • Starting with generators of a lattice in PSL(2,C), building a fundamental domain and getting a triangulation of the corresponding manifold. (Useful for building arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifolds.)
  • dual_curves should really cache it’s result and have this used by drill
  • Abelian group should he able to take any input and put it in canonical form, rather than simply insisting it be that way already. (Cf kernel_code/abelian_group.c/compress_abelian_group())
  • One should be able to convert a SymmetryGroup to a Sage permutation group.
  • Also, the SymmetryGroup presentation function should be wrapped. There is code for this in the old SnapPeaPython.

Development Basics

Submitting patches

We’re using mercurial, and you can get a copy of the repository via:

hg clone static-http://www.math.uic.edu/~t3m/hg/SnapPy

After editing the files, commit your changes to the local repository via:

hg commit -m "Fixed cache issue with sending from plink"

Then do:

hg log -l 5

changeset: 396:a5a0809a371d
tag: tip
user: Nathan Dunfield <nathan@dunfield.info>
date: Fri Oct 02     09:07:33 2009 -0500
summary: Fixed cache issue with sending from plink
...

to get the changeset number(s) of your commits and then do:

hg export -g 396:a5a0809a371d > plink_cache.patch

and mail us the file “plink_cache.patch”.

OS X

Here is how to get a clean development setup under OS X, either 10.4 or 10.5.

• First, install Python 2.6 using the Mac Installer Disk Image. Set your path so that “python” is:

  /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/python

• Then install Setuptools, a Python package manager:

  curl -O http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py
  python ez_setup.py

  and use it to install the following packages:

  python -m easy_install mercurial   # Source code control software
  python -m easy_install Cython      # Used for Python-C interfacing
  python -m easy_install Sphinx      # For building the documentation
  python -m easy_install ipython     # Improved Python shell
  python -m easy_install py2app      # For making app bundles
  touch /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/Resources/version.plist # Fixes bug in py2app

• Install Active Tcl/Tk 8.4.19 (not 8.5 or 8.6) from ActiveState.

• Get the source code from the repository, using the version “hg” that is in the same directory as Python 2.6:

  hg clone static-http://www.math.uic.edu/~t3m/hg/plink
  hg clone static-http://www.math.uic.edu/~t3m/hg/SnapPy

  Next, make it so that Python uses the version of Tk that was just installed, not the older version that ships with OS X:

  sudo cp SnapPy/tkinter-versions/_tkinter-8.4.19.so /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/lib-dynload/_tkinter.so

• Test the stand-alone link editor:

  cd plink
  python setup.py install
  python -m plink.app   # Link editor appears!

  This last command runs the script “plink/app.py”; the real code for the link editor is in “plink/__init__.py”.

  Building the proper Mac application bundle (not necessary for testing, typically):

  cd plink-app
  python setup.py py2app
  open dist    # This directory contains the clickable app.

• Now build SnapPy itself. One builds it twice to generate the documentation, much of which is extracted from the installed module:

  cd ../../SnapPy
  sh build_pari.sh     # Used to compute homology
  python setup.py install
  python setup.py build_docs install

  If “.” is in your path, you’ll need to change directory before starting SnapPy; otherwise it will attempt to load “./snappy” which lacks the binary module:

  cd SnapPyApp
  python -m snappy.app   #SnapPy starts!

  To build the clickable app, just do the following in the SnapPyApp directory:

  python setup.py py2app

The some parts of the SnapPy codebase are:

• “SnapPy.pyx”: The Cython interface to the SnapPea kernel
• “CyOpenGL*.pyx”: The Cython interface to OpenGL*
• “snappy/app.py”: The core GUI code
• “snappy/polyviewer.py”: The GUI code for Dirichlet domains
• “snappy/horoviewer.py”: The GUI code for horoball pictures

In addition, Jeff’s old prototype for a Tk-based UI can be found in “JeffsOldUI/SnapPeaGUI.py”; just run Python on this file to try it out, after installing PythonMegaWidgets.

Windows XP

Install Python 2.6, `MinGW-5.1.4.exe (including g++), MSYS-1.0.11.exe and msysDTK-1.0.1.exe<http://mingw.org>`_, Inno Setup, Mercurial, and PyReadine. Then install setuptools just by downloading ez_setup.py and double-clicking it. In MSYS do the following:

cd c:Python26
python.exe -m easy_install cython
python.exe -m easy_install sphinx
hg clone static-http://www.math.uic.edu/~t3m/hg/SnapPy
cd SnapPy
sh build_pari.sh
../python.exe setup.py build -c mingw32
../python.exe setup.py install
../python.exe setup.py build_docs
../python.exe setup.py install
cd ../
python.exe -m snappy.app

If that works, install py2exe via the binary installer. Then:

cd SnapPy/SnapPyExe
export PATH=$PATH:/c/Python26:/c/Program\ Files/Inno\ Setup\ 5/
python -m easy_install pyopengl

Now edit line 5 of make.py with the location of the glut32.dll and also InnoSnapPy.iss to reflect the location of the SnapPy/SnapPyExe directory (edit all the lines with “culler” in them). Then:

python make.py