CalliopeMini Stubs

Use this library to develop your python programs for the Calliope Mini using a state-of-the-art python IDE such as Visual Studio Code on your computer.

This library only helps by providing documentation, type annotations and function signatures. It does not contain a simulator/emulator and it does not allow to transfer the developed code to the Calliope Mini.

Setup VSCode

• Install the ms-python.python extension.
• Create a virtual environment, via python -m venv <name> and activate it. Note: Make sure to install this only in a local virtual environment (and not system-wide) as some libraries overwrite "system" libraries and thus make scripts that are not intended to run on the Calliope Mini fail.
• pip install calliope-mini-stubs to get this package installed.
• Select the correct python (e.g. if you pip installed into a virtual environment, chose the python from there).

Now you can create a file and begin it with from calliope_mini import display and upon typing display.sh you should see display.show as proposal and if you select it the help text for display.show.

To make more of the extension:

• Enable Checkers pylint and mypy -- see python linting.

Tutorial

1. Create a virtual environment

    % python3 -m venv --system-site-packages venv
   

2. Activate it (python, pip, etc will be found in this directory from now on)

    % source ./venv/bin/activate
   

3. Verify, that you are using this virtual envirnonment -- which python3 should generate something like this

    % which python3
    <path where you work>/venv/bin/python3
   

4. Install this package

    % python3 -m pip install --upgrade calliope-mini-stubs
    Looking in indexes: ....
    Collecting calliope-mini-stubs
      Downloading https://....
    Installing collected packages: calliope-mini-stubs
    Successfully installed calliope-mini-stubs-<version>
   

5. Launch Visual Studio Code

    % code .
   

6. Create a new python file, for example hello_world.py.

7. Make sure, that the correct interpreter is used. On the lower left corner of VSCode you should see the python from venv selected:

   

   If this is not the correct one, then select the right interpreter. To do so:

   • run Ctrl + Shift + P and type Python: Select Interpreter

     

   • then type ./venv/bin/python and select that.

8. In your python file, start typing, e.g. import calliope_mini. During typing, you should already get calliope_mini proposed. IntelliSense allows VSCode to give you hints on what objects/methods/... you can select in this place

   

   and VSCode can directly display the documentation for the method you currently use (e.g. the function signature and a human readable description)

   

License

This package is licensed under MIT license. See the LICENSE file.

It uses code from the package pseudo-microbit which is also MIT licensed (same as this package) with the copyright notice

Copyright (c) 2013-2016 The MicroPython-on-micro:bit Developers, as listed
in the accompanying AUTHORS file

On Stub Files

Generatlly, stubs should be distributed in the form of .pyi files -- one .pyi with documentation/typing informatino for each .py file.

PEP 484 describes, how the .pyi files should look like.

PEP 561 describes, how to distribute them:

• The package needs to be named foopkg-stubs for package foopkg
• A file py.typed must be installed in the top-level of the package.

Problems

• pylint does not recognize __init__.pyi files: pylint-dev/pylint#2873 This way, if you declare modules with interfaces only, pylint will display the error undefined variable ... or no ... in module .... (vscode will correctly show the methods/docstrings/..., though!) -> Solution: Use .py files instead of .pyi files.
• static values such as Image.HAPPY are neither autocompleted nor properly recognized as type (i.e. a in a = Image.HEART is not detected as Image (or MicroBitImage)). If Image were an instance it would work... See the question how to get that working.

Working Examples for .pyi files

• https://github.com/typeddjango/django-stubs/tree/master/django-stubs is for https://github.com/django/django/tree/master/django
• https://github.com/mcneel/pythonstubs/tree/master/stubs/Rhino is for https://developer.rhino3d.com/wip/guides/rhinopython/