Works on windows w/o WSL?

[charris-msft]

Hey folks,
I've been an admirer of Visidata for some time but do all my work on Windows (and sometimes WSL). I could have been using Visidata, but didn't because of the extra WSL hoop (shame on me!)

After recently using some data engineering tools with pipx, I decided to try it with Visidata...
pipx install visidata
and so far, it's worked beautifully!

Yes, I have WSL installed, but from a PowerShell prompt I can just type visidata .\myawesome.csv.

unfortunately, on my machine vd doesn't work. Windows just asks how do I want to open the file and looking at it I see a bit of python code:

#!C:\Users\charris\.local\pipx\venvs\visidata\Scripts\python.exe

import visidata.main

if __name__ == '__main__':
    visidata.main.vd_cli()

But who cares, this is awesome that it seems to just work! (and I could always create an alias for visidata.exe).

Has anyone tried this (rather than opening directly via WSL)? Are there any known issues?

[ajkerrigan]

Hiya @charris-msft , glad the pipx install worked outside WSL! Regarding the vd vs. visidata executable, I know it has come up in previous issues (see also #1406 and #1268) but I don't know what if anything could/should change to avoid that confusion on Windows.

As for running inside vs. outside WSL, my main suggestion would be to consider falling back to WSL if you hit any strange behavior. Pretty vague I know! But since much of VisiData's development and usage is Linux or Mac-focused, you might find some lesser-used features or plugins that make accidental platform assumptions.

[saulpw]

Hey @charris-msft, thanks for the post. There are a few Windows users and my impression is that it works reasonably well. There are some missing elements (like the underline attribute, used in both the column headers and to divide top/bottom split-screen), and some features that won't work without configuration. I believe @aborruso and his crew use Windows, maybe they can chime in.

I'd love to have a proper Windows executable, ideally a plain downloadable .exe but it seems like that's not a reasonable thing to do these days on modern Windows. I did a basic pass in 2021 (which is in visidata/vdplus) to get a first version in the Microsoft App Store, and I ultimately gave up when it got caught in review--maybe this will become easier with Microsoft's recent decision on commercial open source apps. If you or anyone who uses Windows is interested in taking another pass at this, hit me up!

[nvallinoto]

dear all visidata lovers,
I just started a new edition of a open data course for a high superior school in genova and I have the following situation.
I need to install Visidata in a lab with 20 desktop pc having and 1 or more administrators and many simple (with no admin roles) users.
This morning I tried to install Visidata with WSL (using an admin user) and until I use Visidata with this user the program works well.
The problem is that if I log again to the pc with a different and normal user Visidata is not working (and WSL too). As I understood from this discussion is not possible (microsoft/WSL#5151) and the only solution is to install WSL for each user in that pc. So I need to install n(PC) multiply m(users) times WSL where n is the number of students and m is number of PC in the lab.. maybe you have better experience that simplify the situation ! Thanks for any help.

[nvallinoto]

another possible solution perhaps could be to install Visidata on Windows (without WSL) using an admin user the "pip3 install visidata" (after having installed python 3.11 version because with 3.12 is not working for Visidata..) with cmd or powershell with admininistrator option.
After that one can add to the system path the directory where visidata is installed (I guess it is the following folder but there is no visidata.py as I supposed) that is
C:\Users\vallinoto\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\visidata
And then logging again with another normal (with no admin role) user and see if visidata is working or not.
Maybe.

[nvallinoto]

I found the solution to install visidata in a laboratory with many multiuser pcs with windows 10/11 onboard.

Here the steps for those having the same needs as me:

• Log in your PC with an admin user.

INSTALL PYTHON:

• download python 3.11 (https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.11.9/python-3.11.9-amd64.exe)
• click on the exe running as administrator
• select the option "Add python.exe to PATH" and click on "Customize installation"
• select "for all users"
• click next
• select "Install python 3.11 for all users"
• Customize install location should change in C:\Program files\Python311
• click install

INSTALL VISIDATA

• launch cmd or powershell running as administrator
• pip3 install visidata
• duplicate visidata.exe (from folder C:\Program files\Python311\Scripts) and rinominate in vd.exe

LAUNCH VISIDATA

• launch cmd or powershell
• write command line vd or visidata to open visidata

LAUNCH VISIDATA WITH ANOTHER USER

• exit and log in with a normal user (with no admin role)
• launch cmd or powershell
• write command line vd or visidata to open visidata

CONFIGURATION FILE

• each user (let's say myuser) should have its own configuration file .visidatarc in personal home directory c:\users\myuser

THAT'S ALL!

[anjakefala]

Thanks so much for sharing your findings @charris-msft in step-by-step detail! I'm glad you found a reasonable process, and I'm really excited to hear about how your workshop goes.

What's digit?

[nvallinoto]

Thanks so much for sharing your findings @charris-msft in step-by-step detail! I'm glad you found a reasonable process, and I'm really excited to hear about how your workshop goes.

What's digit?

"digit" means "write command line" VD or VISIDATA to launch the program

this morning I just started a new edition (the 5th) of a course on open data with two classes of technical institute Calvino of Genova.
Here you can find information about the first 4 editions took place in different schools of my town.
https://www.scuoladigitaleliguria.it/community/pcto/pcto-open-data.html

After two lessons on theory of open data we (me and other colleagues) submit practice lessons showingthe students two free software to manage and visualize data: VisiData and QGis. And last but not least the students divide themselves in little groups and make exercises using open data with VisiData and QGis.

[saulpw]

Also how do you feel about making this a general Windows discussion thread? I'd love a place to point people with issues like #1431 for a broader discussion.

[charris-msft]

I love the idea!

[nvallinoto]

yes I think it's a good idea @saulpw

[danihinder]

Have you ever tried to replay a command log? Doesn't work for me and I'm not sure if this is because of I'm on windows or something else. It just does nothing when I invoke the --play option. I should/will try this in WSL, maybe it's just me :)

[anjakefala]

Yup! And to get .ods working, you install odfpy.

You are right that it would be nice if we could add documentation on installing optional modules to the install page.

[danihinder]

I should have mentioned, I already tried pip install odfpy to no avail. But I'm actually pretty new to python, so assume the worst with me :)

[danihinder]

Nevermind, I just installed pip install odfpy in a WSL SuSE and it's working fine there. So it's something self made in my Windows installation which I'll figure out then for myself. No worries, the documentation is top notch, the "odfpy" part was missing, that's all.
I just made a test in WSL with an .odf file regarding the cmdlog problem, it doesn't work there. It's exactly the same behaviour like with the .xls file.

[danihinder]

I just found out what I did wrong: If I had opened a file in an already running visidata instance, the subsequent playback of the cmdlog did not work, because the file name in the cmdlog is missing. If I open the same file at the command line with visidata ./some_file.xlsx, the subsequent playback of the cmdlog works. Stupid beginner's mistake, I could have recognized it earlier in the cmdlog, it's there in plain text. Now everything really works and I am more than happy! Sorry for the confusion with .xlsx .ods etc... I assumed a bug, but I'm glad, it was really just me :)

[jabellcu]

I had the same issue and this post has helped me realize what the problem was. Thanks!