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Start

Once the application is installed, you can launch it:

  • Windows: from the "Start Menu" or from C:\Program Files\Picteus\Picteus.exe ;
  • macOS: from the "Applications" folder or from /Applications/Picteus.app.

Only one instance of the application is authorized to be running at the same time, and if you attempt to start another instance, you will get an error.

First launch​

During the first start-up of the application:

  1. because the application relies on Python and Node.js runtimes, it will download those runtimes ;
  2. because the application is extensible and ships built-in extensions, it will install them along with their dependencies ;
  3. because some extensions rely on Machine Learning libraries, some large tensor files will be downloaded.

This is the reason why the first launch takes time, about 2 minutes, provided you have a descent Internet connection.

CLI​

You can start the application from the command line in your favorite terminal and fine-tune its configuration and behavior via options and commands. To discover what those options are, run the following command:

  • Windows:
Windows Command Prompt
start /wait "" "C:\Program Files\Picteus\Picteus.exe" --help
Windows PowerShell
Start-Process "C:\Program Files\Picteus\Picteus.exe" "--help" -Wait
  • macOS:
macOS shell
/Applications/Picteus.app/Contents/MacOS/Picteus --help

For now, there is only one run command, which starts the application and to get the documentation of its options, run the following command:

  • Windows:
Windows Command Prompt
start /wait "" "C:\Program Files\Picteus\Picteus.exe" run --help
Windows PowerShell
Start-Process "C:\Program Files\Picteus\Picteus.exe" "run --help" -Wait
  • macOS:
macOS shell
/Applications/Picteus.app/Contents/MacOS/Picteus run --help

Simply use the following command if you do not need to set options:

  • Windows:
Windows Command Prompt
start /wait "" "C:\Program Files\Picteus\Picteus.exe"
Windows PowerShell
Start-Process "C:\Program Files\Picteus\Picteus.exe" -Wait
  • macOS:
macOS shell
/Applications/Picteus.app/Contents/MacOS/Picteus

Starting the application from the command line enables you to access to its execution logs, which enable to understand what it is doing. The application is verbose and provides a wealth of details about its internal state, which allows following its execution steps.

Logs​

The application yields logs: when starting it from its desktop icon, logs are not visible in a terminal, but when starting from the CLI, they are output directly to the terminal standard output.

  • Log messages are color-coded depending on verbosity: DEBUG — blue —, INFO — green —, WARN — orange —, or ERROR — red ;
  • The logs from the Electron wrapper application, the back-end server, and the front-end React.js application are all output in the standard process output.

Log files location​

Log messages are also persisted into log files on the local filesystem, namely in the following directory path:

  • Windows: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Picteus\logs,
  • macOS: /Users/<user>/Library/Logs/Picteus,
  • Linux: /home/<user>/.config/Picteus/logs.

where <user> is the user's login.

The Electron application offers the "Logs Folder" entry in the main "Picteus" menu, which opens the file explorer located in that directory.

The log files are split by component:

  • the Electron application logs are written to the picteus-electron.log file ;
  • the back-end server and front-end application logs are written together to the picteus-back-end.log file.

When a log file exceeds 1 MB., it is archived as new file with a N.log suffix instead, so that log files are rolled.

When troubleshooting the application or reporting issues, these log files provide a wealth of information.