Windows Executable

If you are using Windows and would like an executable version that doesn't require Python to be installed, you can use Movable Python.

This comes with Firedrop2 built into it, and configured to run from the second Quick Launch button.

As a special bonus it is designed to work from USB memory stick, so you can carry your blog around with you.

Dependencies

First you must install all the dependencies. If you have any of these already installed you can miss those steps out.

1. Python

   If you don't already have Python installed I recommend the latest version, which is 2.4.3. There are pre-built binaries for most platforms available for download from the official site.

   Firedrop2 probably requires Python 2.3, or more recent [2].

2. wxPython

   This is the cross-platform GUI toolkit that Firedrop2 uses. It will almost certainly require a recent version, 2.6.1.0 or later.

   It has been tested with the latest version, 2.6.3.2.

3. Wax

   Download the latest version from sourceforge. If there is a setup.py included in your distribution do not use it to install Wax. This will be a cause of much frustration.

   Instead copy the wax folder into your site-packages folder [3].

4. PyEnchant

   You will need this to use the Firespell Spell Checker plugin.

5. docutils

   In order to use ReStructured Text markup, you will need docutils 0.3.9, or more recent, installed.

Install Firedrop2

Next install Firedrop2, obviously you'll need to download it first.

Inside the zip file should be the following files and directories :

• firedrop.pyw

  This is the program file to launch Firedrop2. So long as the firedrop2/ directory is on sys.path you can put this file anywhere you want to.

  Double clicking on this will launch Firedrop.

• realmacros.py

  This is the default macros file.

  You can edit it to add whatever macros you want.

  See the macros page for details of where to put it, and how to use it.

• wax

  This directory contains a single module called messagedialog.py.

  If you are running Mac OS X you need to copy this file over the default one supplied with Wax. It contains a compatibility fix.

  Hopefully at some point this fix will go into the main Wax distribution.

• BSD-LICENSE.txt

  A copy of the Open Source license that Firedrop2 is released under. There is an online copy of this at BSD License.

• firedrop2

  This is the main directory.

  You need to put this directory in the same place as you put wax. Inside your site-packages folder.

  This directory contains all the Firedrop2 files, as well as the following subdirectories :

  • modules

    The files in here are Python modules used by the macros.

  • plugins

    These files are where plugin modules and files go.

  • site

    These are the default template files used by Firedrop2,

  • test

    A few test files used in the development of Firedrop2.

  • themes

    This directory is used by the new Themes plugin.

  • docs

    These are the text source files of the Firedrop2 documentation. They are turned into HTML by rest2web.

  • docs_html

    The HTML documentation for Firedrop2.

    This directory has a smilies subdirectory.

    These are the smiley images used by the smiley macro. Assuming you want to use them, you'll need these on your server somewhere. This folder has a little file called sc_smilies.pak.

    This file describes the smilies, and the macro system needs access to it. Full details are in the macros page.

  The firedrop2/ directory also contains three configuration files :

  • entry.ini

    The default values for new entries.

  • firedrop.ini

    This is used to specify the plugins that will be available to every blog. You can also enable individual plugins in the build.ini for each blog.

  • site.ini

    This specifies a default blog to open when you run firedrop.pyw. You can specify the path to one of your blog directories here.

  When you run firedrop.pyw and open a blog these files will be copied to your home directory and used from there. Another file will be created called .menuhistory.txt. This will store a list of all the blogs to present in the Recently Opened menu list.

  More details on the file locations for the various options file can be found in the Options

What Next

Having installed Firedrop2 (and confirmed that it works by double clicking on firedrop.pyw), turn to Getting Started. This has instructions on how to create your weblog.