Find a way to create a geomag.py shortcut for users upon installation.

If it's even possible...

Some users may not be proficient enough with the command line to find and run an app in their environment's bin directory let alone create shortcuts or bash aliases for them. Is there a way to create a shortcut for users during installation?

added Discuss label

Short of using something like PyInstaller to create an executable, I think there is no fool-proof way to install and configure geomag-algorithms so that anyone can use it without at least changing a path. Everyone's computer is different, sometimes in very subtle ways. But I will point out that one can get most of the way by installing geomag-algorithms via command line using...

pip install git+https://code.usgs.gov/ghsc/geomag/geomag-algorithms.git

As you've seen, if someone clones geomag-algorithms for developing software against it, it is a little more complicated, and requires installation, and a basic understanding, of the poetry package, but that should not be a difficult ask for a software developer.

And to be clear, I'm not saying PyInstaller is off-the-table, but it is a complicated additional thing to track, and we struggle to keep documentation up to date with what we have already. What's more, I don't know if/how PyInstaller would work for a command line application like geomag-py, or if those users who are unable to even change a path or configure an alias would understand what a command line program was anyway.

That overly complicated for the time being. Perhaps this issue should be replaced with something along the lines of "Update/improve usage documentation".

Agreed. TBH, I'm not certain why the main README.md file changed the preferred installation method to Docker. That is only "simpler" if users have easy and free access to Docker, and even then, the usage instructions are confusing. Anyway, I'll close this issue (it can be re-opened later easily enough), and open a new documentation issue.

closed