DevNotes_DevEnvironmentInstall

Before proceeding, make sure that you have git installed. Note this can sometimes be done as part of your IDE setup (e.g. vscode, spider, pycharm etc) if you are using one.

The most up to date quick instructions for setting a developer environment, once git is installed, now reside in the SasView install.md file. Those instructions are for the current preferred python virtual environment or venv. However using Conda or uv are also viable options as noted there. Below are some instructions for using a Conda environment instead.

CONDA INSTRUCTIONS

Note 1: These assume that you have a free conda installer e.g. miniforge available

Note 2: All commands should be executed from a terminal window (Terminal on OSX and Linux or Miniforge Prompt or Anaconda Prompt on Windows)

Note 3: The conda environment itself can be updated with the command

conda update --all

Setup conda environment:

conda create -n sasview_dev python=3.12

NB: As of Apr 2026 the default Python version for Miniforge is 3.13. This is fine if you only intend to write/revise/compile documentation.

NB: As of Nov 2025 the GUI version of SasView will only run under Python 3.12. Email help@sasview.org for the latest information.

Activate the environment

conda activate sasview_dev

Clone sasview, sasdata, and sasmodels repositories

git clone https://github.com/SasView/sasview.git
git clone https://github.com/SasView/sasmodels.git
git clone https://github.com/SasView/sasdata.git

NB: The git clone command will take a second argument specifying a destination folder.

NB: If you are only intending to write/revise/compile model documentation it is only necessary to clone the sasmodels repository.

Install dependencies and run the application:

Follow instructions in the install.md as listed at the top

If you already have an (old) environment and want to refresh it...

First, deactivate the environment

conda deactivate

This should drop you into the base environment. Then remove the required environment

conda remove --name ENV_NAME --all

For good measure then navigate to your Anaconda installation folder and the \envs subfolder. Delete any folder in there matching the environment you just removed.

Decide if you want to update conda itself (see Note 3 above).

Then proceed to set up a new environment.