Shoebot is a Python graphics robot: It takes a Python script as input, which describes a drawing process, and outputs a graphic in a common open standard format (SVG, PDF, PostScript, or PNG). It works through simple text files, and scripts can describe their own GUIs for controlling variables interactively. It can also be used as a Python module, a plugin for Python-scriptable tools such as Inkscape, and run from the command line.

Shoebot is a port/rewrite of Nodebox 1. It was also inspired by DrawBot and Shoes. Thus, "Shoebot".

Shoebot runs on Python 2.7, which is most probably what you already have installed. To get better performance you can run using pypy, which is experimental.

For now, the only means of installing Shoebot is getting it from the source repository. Shoebot uses Git for version control. It's available on most major GNU/Linux distributions; fire up your terminal and type:

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get install git

Fedora:

sudo yum install git

SuSE:

sudo zypper install git-core

Gentoo:

emerge git

OSX:

Just make sure XCode and the Command Line Tools are installed.

Make a temporary directory to download all source files into, and then get the source itself.

mkdir ~/src
cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/shoebot/shoebot.git

You should now see a new shoebot/ directory. The only remaining step is to install shoebot and its dependencies:

Linux and Virtualenvwrapper:

Using virtualenvwrapper is the easiest way to get started. First, install the necessary dependencies for Shoebot.

# Install Shoebot dependencies if you haven't already
cd install
./install_dependencies.sh

# Create a new virtualenv using pypy
mkvirtualenv shoebot-env -p `which pypy`

# Install Shoebot in the virtualenv
pip install -r requirements.txt
python setup.py install

# To use shoebot in future remember to activate the environment first.
workon shoebot-env

Linux wih plain virtualenv:

If you don't use virtualenvwrapper follow these instructions after installing the dependencies.

# make a new virtualenv environment using pypy
virtualenv shoebot-env -p `which pypy`

# activate it
source shoebot-env/bin/activate

# Install Shoebot in the virtualenv
pip install -r requirements.txt
python setup.py install

# To use shoebot in future remember to activate the environment first.
source shoebot-env/bin/activate

OSX:

Homebrew

With MacPorts (http://www.macports.org) and python2.5

sudo port install py27-numpy -atlas
sudo port install pango +quartz
sudo port install librsvg py27-pil py27-cairo py27-gtk

MacPorts does not have the python-rsvg package, so svg output won't work. TODO: probably installing py27 packages and gnome-python-desktop would fix the missing python-rsvg problem.

Using the Shoebot console runner is straightforward:

sbot inputfile.bot

This command will run the 'inputfile.bot' script, and create an output image file (output.svg). You'll want to specify your own filename, which can be done like so:

sbot inputfile.bot -o image.png

The allowed extensions for the output filename are .svg, .ps, .pdf and .png.

You can find many example Shoebot scripts in /usr/share/shoebot/examples.

Shoebot can also run in a window, which is useful for quick previews, as well as realtime manipulation of parameters. For this, just use the window flag:

sbot -w inputfile.bot

For a list of extra options, type

sbot -h

You can find the current docs at ReadTheDocs.

Shoebot documentation can also be generated locally using sphinx. First, install it::

pip install sphinx

The following commands will output the HTML docs::

cd doc
make html 

The documentation should now be available in doc/build.

For a great intro to the Nodebox/Shoebot language, be sure to check the Nodebox tutorials at http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Tutorial .

The Shoebot documentation has quite a lot more information on what you can do with Shoebot, such as:

• running Shoebot as a Python module
• using the socketserver to have other programs control a Shoebot script
• using Shoebot to generate images via a CGI script

• Website: http://shoebot.net
• Documentation: http://shoebot.readthedocs.org
• Mailing lists: http://tinkerhouse.net/shoebot/devel
• Source browser: http://github.com/shoebot/shoebot
• Bug tracker: http://github.com/shoebot/shoebot/issues

Copyright (C) 2007-2015 The Shoebot authors (Stuart Axon, Dave Crossland, Francesco Fantoni, Ricardo Lafuente, Sebastian Oliva) Originally developed by Ricardo Lafuente with the support of the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.