# Installing twill

Contents

- Installing twill on Windows
- Installing twill on Mac OS X
- Troubleshooting your installation
- Upgrading twill

The recommended way to install twill is to use easy_install:

    easy_install twill

You can also install it directly from the distribution tar.gz file by unpacking the .tar.gz file and running

    python setup.py install

Either way, you need to have setuptools installed; setuptools doesn't come with Python 2.3 or Python 2.4, so you will need to install it before you install twill. To install both easy_install and setuptools, grab ez_setup.py from

    http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py

and run 'python ez_setup.py'. This will install setuptools and put an easy_install program in your Python scripts directory.

# Installing twill on Windows

The most frequent problem people seem to encounter on Windows is the inability to run 'twill-sh'. This happens because the Python installation's 'scripts' directory isn't in the path by default. According to the Python Windows FAQ, the magic incantation is something like this:

    PATH C:\Python23\scripts;%PATH%

(You should replace "C:Python23" with the directory of your Python installation.)

# Installing twill on Mac OS X

As with Windows, the problem most frequently encountered seems to be that the Python 'bin' directory isn't part of your path by default. This means that the twill shell program, 'twill-sh', will not be found unless you add the script directory into your path. On current versions of Mac OS X, something like this should work: for bash shells,:

    export PATH=$PATH:/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/bin

or for csh-based shells,

    set path=($path /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/bin)

# Troubleshooting your installation

The first and only thing you should do before asking the list (twill@lists.idyll.org) for help is to see if you have the twill package installed correctly:

    % python
    >>> import twill.shell
    >>> twill.shell.main()

(This should drop you into the twill shell irrespective of whether 'twill-sh' is on your path.) If this works, twill is installed correctly and you just need to adjust your path (see above for examples). If you still need help, or the above code doesn't work, please copy and paste the results of entering the above code into your e-mail to the list -- thanks!

# Upgrading twill

If you don't want to download a new tar.gz file, you can use easy_install to upgrade twill. To get the latest release, use

    easy_install -U twill

To download the latest development release (which is usually pretty stable) use

    easy_install -f http://issola.caltech.edu/~t/dist/ -U twill