there are a built in resources for packaging python scripts as executables applications. they seem to work with pygame. they may not work with pygame-zero and so the development environment may need to be more “grownup” than Mu. I imagine Thonny or IDLE will be fine but will have to test.

I have a zoom with Eric G for this project/collab in about an hour so I should eat now.

gonna check out a couple of IDEs. I have MS VS Code onboard the Raspberry Pi. … I think it may take too much memory/processing power for my pi-top setup. I received a “window not responding” warning while booting it up. The startup window brags about JavaScript being a “first class citizen”. It’s too weighty. I just deleted MS Visual Studio Code from my Raspberry Pi. I also remembered that MS provides tech for ICE. No tech for ICE.

I’m installing Thonny to kick the tires.

While Thonny was loading I sent the Do Not Press thanksgiving message.

I also decided to update OBS and play with it a bit. Boy did I make some kind of mistake. It froze my entire system and locked me out of trackpad and mouse on my MacBookPro.

I’m writing this on the rebooted device.

Okay, there is a disjuncture between what I’m viewing as tutorials and my Raspberry Pi development environment.

Thonny available to me is version 3.x.x. The Thonny website is boasting the recent release of version 4.0.0. Thonny3 runs fine, by the way.

Thonny3 appears to bring with it a “private” repository of Python3 version 3.7.1. The tutorial is using Python3 version 3.9.0, and there may be an even newer version available.

Thonny3 has access to Pygame version 1.x.x. The tutorial is using Pygame 2.0.0 which has important syntax differences with the one I’m using.

I am trying to find docs for the older pygame so I can translate in real time as I learn.

Or, trying to see if my seven year old raspberry pi can run the newer softwares.

Last week I ran updates on the Pi packages, and it appears that I am still running Buster/Sirius. The new pi-top OS is BullsEye and I don’t know which Raspberry Pi OS it concurs with.

There is a command line upgrade directive, but it doesn’t tell me what it will do. Sigh.

I have bricked my pi-top in the past by upgrading willy nilly. I’d rather not do that again.

I’m checking to see if I can upgrade the version of Python3 on my device. So, both python 2 and 3.7 are onboard. I can’t remove python 2 without breakiing some important thiings.

I believe Ii have learned how to upgrade Pygame within Thonny to version 2.1.2! Have to use pip3 in terminal invoked from withiin Thonny to get it to go to the right place.

Now to test the tutoriial code.

okay, now we’re cooking with gas!

back to the tutorial

looks like Thonny/Py3/PG2 not liking PNG and asking for BMP?????? But tutorial uses PNG and pgzero loved PNG on my RasPi.

gonna have to do some searching to see what this is about.

Okay, it seems that there are “basic” builds and “extended” builds of pygame. I have the newer version, but it is a basic build. Now to see if I can extend it.