.. |geq| unicode:: U+02265 .. greater than or equal symbol

Introduction
++++++++++++



Overview
********

`ViTables` is a member of the `PyTables` family. It's a graphical tool for browsing and editing files in both PyTables and `HDF5` formats. With `ViTables` you can easily navigate through data hierarchies, request metadata, view
real data and much more.

`ViTables` is being developed using `Python` and `PyQt`, the bindings of `Qt` libraries, so it can run on any platform that supports these components (which includes Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and many other Unices). The interface and features will remain the same on all platforms.

Efficiency and low memory requirements are guaranteed by the fact that data is loaded only when the object that contains it is opened and by the use of data buffers for dealing with large datasets.

Capabilities
************

The current release provides browsing, displaying, editing and querying capabilities. Some of them are listed below. Details are discussed in the related chapters.

Browsing and displaying capabilities
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

- Display data hierarchy as a fully browsable object tree.

- Open several files simultaneously.

- Open files in write mode as well as in read-only mode, disabling all editing functions.

- Display file information (path, size, number of nodes…).

- Display node (group or leaf) properties, including metadata and attributes.

- Display numerical arrays, i.e. homogeneous tables.

- Display heterogeneous table entities, i.e. records.

- Display multidimensional table cells.

- Unlimited zoom into the inner dimensions of multidimensional table cells.

Editing capabilities
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

These editing features have been implemented for the object tree [#f1]_:

- File creation and renaming.

- Node creation (only for groups), renaming and deletion.

- Ability to copy and move nodes from their location to a different one, even in different files.

- Attribute creation, renaming and deletion.

All these changes automatically update the database (i.e. the file) to which the nodes belong.

Other
^^^^^

Other nice features include:

- *Ability to smoothly navigate really large datasets*.

- Support for doing complex table queries with a low memory footprint.

- Flexible plugins framework. A bunch of useful plugins are already included, see the :ref:`Appendix A<appendix-a>` for
  details.

- Configurable look and feel.

- A logger area, where errors and warnings (if any) are printed.

- Several levels of help are available: users guide, context help, tooltips and status bar.

We have paid special attention to usability issues so making use of these features is intuitive and pleasant.
Nevertheless, and just in case, we are providing this guide :-).

System Requirements
*******************

To run `ViTables` you need to install recent versions of `Python` (2 or 3), `PyTables` (so you have to fulfil its own requirements) and `PyQt`. For instance, it runs smoothly with `Python` 3.6, `PyTables` 3.4 and `PyQt` 5.8.

At the moment, `ViTables` has been fully tested on Linux and Windows 10 platforms. Other Unices should run just fine when using the Linux version because all the software that `ViTables` relies on (i.e. `Python`, `Qt`, `PyQt`, `HDF5` and `PyTables`) is known to run fine on many Unix platforms as well.

Installation
************



Linux
^^^^^

The Python setuptools are used to build and install `ViTables`. You can install
the package from PyPI issuing the command::

  $ pip install vitables

This should install the ViTables wheel. If you experience problems installing
the binary package you can install from sources (provided your system fulfills
the requirements listed in the above section). Just download the tarball from
PyPI, uncompress it, change to the distribution directory and execute (as root)::

 $ python setup.py install

If you are doing this on a MacOS X platform, please make sure that the
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable has been setup properly.

By default `ViTables` will be installed in the system-protected area where
your system installs third party Python packages so you will need superuser
privileges. If you prefer to install the package in a different location
(for instance, your home directory) so that the installation can be done by
non privileged users, you can do it using the --prefix (or --home) tag::

 $ python setup.py install --prefix=/home/myuser/mystuff

Please, remember that installing Python modules in non-standard locations
makes it necessary to setup properly the PYTHONPATH environment variable so
that the Python interpreter can find the new modules.

If you need further customizations, please have a look to the output of the
command::

 $python setup.py install --help

to see all the available options. Complete information about them can be
found in the Distutils documentation.

Windows and Mac OS X
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Currently there are no graphical installers available for these platforms. You
have to install `ViTables` from the command line, using one of the methods
described in the Linux section.


Further Reading
***************

General information about `PyTables` can be found at `its project site <http://www.pytables.com>`_. For more information on `HDF5`, please visit its web site `www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5 <http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5>`_. Information about `ViTables` is available at `vitables.org <http://vitables.org>`_.

Questions and feedback can be mailed to the developers.

.. rubric:: Footnotes

.. [#f1] Dataset editing capabilities have not yet been implemented.

