Bubamara OCR with Electron

This is an Electron GUI wrapped around the original Bubamara OCR Python script. It is based on https://github.com/fyears/electron-python-example.

Requirements

This is tested to work with

• Mac OSX 10.12.6
• Python 3.5.5
• Node 6.14.3

Install Python dependencies for building locally

Use pip to install opencv, numpy, zerorpc and pyinstaller.

pip install opencv
pip install numpy
pip install zerorpc
pip install pyinstaller

# for windows only
pip install pypiwin32 # for pyinstaller

Install Electron

First, clean all caches.

# On Linux / OS X
# clean caches
npm cache clean
rm -rf ~/.node-gyp
rm -rf ~/.electron-gyp
rm -rf ./node_modules

# On Window PowerShell (not cmd.exe!!!)
# clean caches
Remove-Item "$($env:USERPROFILE)\.node-gyp" -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction Ignore
Remove-Item "$($env:USERPROFILE)\.electron-gyp" -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction Ignore
Remove-Item .\node_modules -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction Ignore

Then, install electron using npm. It's important to install Electron 1.7.6.

npm install --runtime=electron --target=1.7.6

# verify the electron binary and its version by opening it
./node_modules/.bin/electron

Sometimes issues might come up with the zeromq dependency. If that is the case, try following:

npm cache clean
npm rebuild zeromq --runtime=electron --target=1.7.2

Run the app

Navigate to the app's directory in terminal and write

npm start

Package for distribution

Use pyinstaller to package the Python aspect first. It does not always include _sysconfigdata, so the --hiddenimport argument is helpful.

pyinstaller pyfiles/api.py --distpath pydist --hiddenimport _sysconfigdata

rm -rf build/
rm -rf api.spec

Test that Python was packaged correctly by navigating to pydist/api/ and running the api executable to see if there are any errors.

Then, move on to the Electron packaging. The --icon argument is required for Mac.

./node_modules/.bin/electron-packager . --overwrite --ignore="pyfiles$" --icon "assets/icons/mac/icon.icns"