01 Introduction

QualCoder Installation and running instructions

INSTALLATION

For the manual installations (using the command line or terminal) I mention a specific release version, for example version 3.5. Please check on the releases page for the most current version, as it may be newer.

Prerequisites

VLC is optional, but you will need it installed if you need to do any audio/video coding. Optionally, install ffmpeg for speech to text and waveform display, see https://phoenixnap.com/kb/ffmpeg-windows..

Windows

Use the exe

Current releases contain an exe file (created on Windows 10, 64 bit). Double-click to run. See https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/

Alternatively install from source

Seriously consider using a virtual environment (commands in point 6 below). Not using a virtual environment may affect other python software you may have installed.

1. Download and install the Python programming language. The minimum version for QualCoder is 3.8. Python3. Download the file (at the bottom of the web site) "Windows installer (64-bit)" IMPORTANT: in the first window of the installation mark the option "Add Python to PATH"

2. Download the QualCoder software from: https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder from the Green Code button. This is the newest, but not yet officially released code. Click the green button "Code", and then "Download ZIP". Alternatively, choose the most recent release zip, see right hand side of this page for the link to Releases.

3. Unzip the folder to a location (e.g. downloads). (Tip, remove the doubled up folder extraction QualCoder-master\QualCoder-master when asked where to extract. Just QualCoder-master).

4. Use the Windows command prompt. Type "cmd" in the Windows Start search engine, and click on the black software "cmd.exe" - the command console for Windows. In the console type or paste, using the right-click mouse copy and paste (ctrl+v does not work)

5. In the command prompt, move (using the cd command) into the QualCoder folder. You should be inside the QualCoder-master folder or if using a release (the Qualcoder-3.5 folder). e.g.

cd Downloads\QualCoder-master

6. Install and activate the virtual environment.

pip install virtualenv

Create a virtual environment called env.

virtualenv env

Activate the virtual environment, this changes the command prompt display using (brackets): (env)

env\Scripts\activate.bat

7. Install python modules. The py command uses the most recent installed version of python. On soem Windows OS py does not work, instead use python3

You can use a specific version on your Windows, if you have many python versions installed, e.g. py -3.10 See discussion here: Difference between py and python Type the following:

py -m pip install --upgrade pip

py -m pip install wheel pyqt6 chardet ebooklib openpyxl Pillow ply pdfminer.six pandas plotly pydub python-vlc rispy SpeechRecognition

Wait, until all modules are installed .

8. Run QualCoder from the command prompt:

py -m qualcoder

9. If running QualCoder in a virtual environment, to exit the virtual environment type:

deactivate

The command prompt will then remomove the (env) wording.

10. To start QualCoder again:

If you are not using virtual environment, as long as you are in the same drive letter, eg C:

py -m qualcoder

If you are using a virtual environment:

cd to the Qualcoder-master (or Qualcoder release folder), then type:

env\Scripts\activate.bat

py -m qualcoder

Debian/Ubuntu Linux

There is an executable file in the releases page for Ubuntu 22.04 for the 3.3 release. Download and double click to run.

Alternatively, run QualCoder inside a python virtual environment, so that the system installed python modules do not clash and cause problems. I have added the additional code to do this here.

Install venv I am using python3.10 you can choose another recent version if you prefer.

sudo apt install python3.10-venv

Download and unzip the Qualcoder folder.

Open a terminal and move (cd) into that folder. You should be inside the QualCoder-master folder or if using a release, e.g. the Qualcoder-3.5 folder. Inside the QualCoder-master folder:

python3.10 -m venv qualcoder

Activate venv, this changes the command prompt display using (brackets): (qualcoder) Note: To exit venv type deactivate

source qualcoder/bin/activate

Upgrade pip before installing the modules:

pip install --upgrade pip

Install the required python modules:

pip install chardet ebooklib openpyxl pandas ply pdfminer pyqt6 pillow pdfminer.six plotly pydub python-vlc six SpeechRecognition

Install QualCoder (the dot is important):

python3 -m pip install .

To run type

qualcoder

After all this is done, you can deactivate to exit the virtual environment. At any time to start QualCoder in the virtual environment, cd to the Qualcoder-master folder (or Qualcoder-3.3 release folder),

Then type: source qualcoder/bin/activate

Then type qualcoder

Arch/Manjaro Linux

Please consider the Debian instructions above to run QualCoder in a virtual environment.

1. Install modules from the command line

sudo pacman -S python python-chardet python-openpyxl python-pillow python-ply python-pyqt6 python-pip

2. Install additional python modules

sudo python3 -m pip install ebooklib pdfminer.six pandas plotly pydub python-vlc SpeechRecognition

If success, all requirements are satisfied.

3. Build and install QualCoder, from the downloaded folder (Qualcoder-master or a release e.g. QualCoder-3.5) type

sudo python3 -m pip install .

4. To run type:

qualcoder

Or install from AUR as follows:

yay -S qualcoder

Fedora/CentOS/RHEL Linux

Please view the Debian instructions above to run QualCoder in a virtual environment. I do not have a Fedora/CentOS/RHEL distribution to test this.

Retrieve the current package code from this repository

git clone https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder.git

Make install_fedora.sh executable (chmod +x install_fedora.sh) and run the ./install_fedora.sh script from the terminal. Make sure the qualcoder folder is in the same directory as the install.sh script (i.e. as it appears when you download the QualCoder-master folder). The script is for python version 3.9.

This script installs the dependencies using dnf and the ebook libraries with a work-around, specified at https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/issues/72#issuecomment-695962784.

Fedora uses wayland with does not work well with the Qt graphical interface (for now). I suggest you also install xwayland.

MacOS

1. Install recent versions of Python3 and VLC. You will also need to install developer tools for macOS. See here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/install-command-line-developer-tools-in-os-x/

2. Download the latest release "Source code" version in ZIP format, from the releases section of the project here on GitHub: https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/tag/3.5 and extract it into /Applications

3. Open the Terminal app (or any other command shell)

4. Install PIP (if not yet installed, try typing pip3 --version and hit ENTER)

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python3 get-pip.py

-> You should now be able to run pip3 as above.

5. Install Python dependency modules using pip:

pip install pyqt6 chardet ebooklib pillow ply pdfminer.six openpyxl pandas plotly pydub python-vlc six SpeechRecognition

Be sure that you are in the QualCoder-Master directory before doing Step 6.

To change the directory, enter or copy and run the script below.

cd /Applications/QualCoder-3.5

From the QualCoder-Master directory run the setup script:

6. python3 -m pip install .

Assuming you downloaded the 3.5 version. You can now run with:

python3 /applications/QualCoder-3.5/qualcoder/__main__.py

Alternative commands to run QualCoder (Suggestions):

From any directory:

qualcoder

From the QualCoder-Master directory:

python3 -m qualcoder

You can install QualCoder anywhere you want, so the path above depends on where you extracted the archive.

Another option to run Qualcoder is shown here: https://www.maketecheasier.com/run-python-script-in-mac/. This means you can right-click on the qualcoder.py file and open with --> python launcher. You can make an alias to the file and place it on your desktop.

Another option to install on Mac:

Open the Terminal App and move to the unzipped Qualcoder-Master directory, then run the following commands:

pip3 install -U py2app or for a system installation of python sudo pip3 install -U py2app

python3 setup.py py2app

Backups

I recommend that you make a backup before doing any substantial changes, such as reorganising codes and categories. QualCoder does perform hourly backups (keeping the most recent five) if backups is set in the settings.

Notice

Copyright Notice

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2024 Colin Curtain Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.