KiCad Partslist Editor installation on OSX

Hello everybody!

Has anybody had luck installing the “KiCad Partslist Editor” plugin that you can find at https://github.com/BPJWES/KiCAD_Partslist_editor?

I don’t know anything about Python or programming, so I really have no idea how to run it. I tried downloading the files and Python itself, but I had no luck.

All help is appreciated! :slight_smile:

“Tried downloading the files and python itself but had no luck” means what? You could not download the files? You could not install python or the parts list tool? Everything installed but you dont know how to run the tool after that?

Hello joost!

Sorry, maybe I should have expressed myself more clearly:

So I downloaded and installed Python 3.6.4 and I also downloaded and unzipped the files for the KiCad Partslist Editor from GitHub, but that’s about all I could do.
I figured out that you need to use Terminal somehow to run the script, but I don’t know what to type in order to run it. Also, I don’t even know where to save the files for the KiCad Partslist Editor so that Python and Terminal can find them.

Another thing that confuses me even more is the fact that there are a lot of different files in the folder for the KiCad Partslist Editor, and I just don’t know which one I need to get running.

As you can see I really don’t know much about programming… So I would really appreciate your help. :slight_smile:

Well the readme does tell you that you should run python3 SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py

So my first try would be to open the terminal in wherever you downloaded the partlist files to and run the command given above.
For windows you might need to run c:\[path to python\python.exe SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py

But how do I run the command in Terminal? When I type python3 SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py then Terminal tells me /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python: can't open file 'SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory even though I have all the needed files on my computer.

What am I doing wrong?

In osx you should have a quite powerful command line.
Maybe read this first to learn how to use it: https://www.macworld.com/article/2042378/master-the-command-line-navigating-files-and-folders.html

Now you need to make sure you navigate to the directory that contains the SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py file.

cd [absolute path to directory containing the file]
use pwd and ls to make sure you are in the correct directory (pwd lists your current directory, ls lists the contents of it. after ls you should see a list that also contains SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py)

after your terminal is in the correct folder you can run partlist with the mentioned command.

Thank you for your reply! I read the article and found the right directory, but again, when I try to run the script I get the following errors:

python3 SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.py", line 312, in <module> background_image = PhotoImage(file="KICAD_PLE.png") File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/tkinter/__init__.py", line 3539, in __init__ Image.__init__(self, 'photo', name, cnf, master, **kw) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/tkinter/__init__.py", line 3495, in __init__ self.tk.call(('image', 'create', imgtype, name,) + options) _tkinter.TclError: couldn't recognize data in image file "KICAD_PLE.png"

And now is the time to contact the developers of this tool. Simply open an issue on the github repo.

I think only tk > 8.6 supports .png images and this version it isn’t installed by default. As a work around, find the KICAD_PLE.png file and open it with a graphics program. Save it as a GIF file and then rename the GIF file as ‘KICAD_PLE.png’.

It then seems to work (Tested macOS, Python3.6.4)

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Hi,

I am the original author of this script. As John_Pateman suggest the issue could lie in the .png file support.

If you’re running windows, you might have an easier time just running the windows executable, located in …/build/exe.win32-3.4/SCH_TO_CSV_OOP.exe

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You might want to add that information to your readme file.

Hello everyone!

Thank you a lot for the numerous replies!

Yes, I finally got the software to run. After doing what @John_Pateman suggested, everything worked smoothly! I simply uploaded the KICAD_PLE.png file to a free online image converter and converted it to a GIF file. Then I changed the extension of the file from KICAD_PLE.gif to KICAD_PLE.png put it into the folder with the files for the KiCad Parslist Editor.

@Wefas: As @Rene_Poschl suggested, maybe you should really add that information to the readme file on GitHub, so that other users can avoid all the confusion and just enjoy your software. :slight_smile: Also, I don’t run Windows but OSX as you can see in the title of this thread, so unfortunately I can’t run the executable file.

So thank you all again! I think that now my issue has been solved.

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