COMTool

English | 中文

A cross platform serial debug tools written by python

Windows	Linux	Raspberry Pi	macOS

White theme	Dark theme	protocol plugin	TCP/UDP	Terminal	Graph

screenshot maybe the old version, the latest may not the same totally! But better performance、more easy to use and more elegant

Installation

There are two ways to install COMTool:

Download binary files and run : For Windows or macOS, and simple usage users
Install as python package(source code) : For Linux, or need to use plugins' user, or users who know about python

Install binary

Windows

Download the latest bin file at the release page or sourceforge
Unzip .zip file, and click comtool.exe to run

And you can install by scoop, maintained by StudentWeis
scoop bucket add Nightly https://github.com/StudentWeis/Nightly
scoop install comtool

Linux has too much version, so we only compile binary for ubuntu. Other distribution please install from pypi or source code. If you have any idea to pack cross platform binary like flatpak or appimage, you can contribute a pull request or add an issue to tell me how to

Arch Linux and its derivative distributions can install from AUR(maintained by taotieren)：
# Release version
yay -S python-comtool
# Development version
yay -S python-comtool-git

Download release at release page, and extract files from .zip file, and click comtool to run
Add current user to dialout group to avoid sudo command

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
grep 'dialout' /etc/group
reboot #must reboot to take effect

Rasberry Pi

just open terminal, type the command below:

sudo apt install git
git clone https://github.com/Neutree/COMTool.git --depth=1
cd COMTool
pip3 install .
# or
# python setup.py bdist_wheel
# sudo pip3 install dist/COMTool-*.*.*-py3-none-any.whl

Add current user to dialout group to avoid sudo command

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
grep 'dialout' /etc/group
reboot #must reboot to take effect

then enjoy by command

comtool

macOS

Download release at release page or sourceforge
Install dmg package

If you want to open multiple comtool, just right click dock icon, then click New Window.

or you can open terminal and type

open -n /Application/comtool.app

cd /Applicatioin/comtool.app/Contents/MacOS
./comtool

Because the program is not signed by the developer, it will warn when you open it for the first time. You need to go to Settings -> Security and Privacy -> General to see the prompt comtool and click Open anyway.

Windows defender shows comtool binary is malware?

If your program is download from here, it's ok, the error caused by pack issue, all the source code and pack script is here, even the pack progress is totally automated with github action, no one manually pack.

If you remain have concern, just download source code to run with python or pack yourself.

Of course, if you find a better pack way, please open issue to tell us.

Install python package

For developers or the binary not support your platform's, use this way to install

Install Python3 first
- If windows or macOS: dowload python3
- If linux: ubuntu for example sudo apt install python3 python3-pip, macOS brew install python3 python3-pip
Ensure you have pip

pip3 --version
# or
pip --version

If no this command, install by

python3 -m ensurepip

Then install from pypi:

pip3 install comtool
comtool

for Chinese, you can use tuna mirrors to download faster by:

pip install -i https://pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/simple comtool

Or you can directly install from github

pip3 install git+https://github.com/Neutree/COMTool

Or you can download source code, then install from source code
- download source code, download in web page or git clone https://github.com/Neutree/COMTool.git
- install

cd COMTool
pip install .

or build your own wheel binary

pip3 install wheel
python setup.py bdist_wheel
pip install dist/COMTool-*.*.*-py3-none-any.whl
comtool

By the way, you should add current user to dialout group to avoid sudo command

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
grep 'dialout' /etc/group
reboot #must reboot to take effect

Copy tool/comtool.desktop to /usr/share/applications folder(may need root user to do this)
Edit /usr/share/applications/comtool.desktop, change icon path Icon=/usr/local/COMTool/assets/logo.ico to actual icon path, you can also use your love icon
Then you can find comtool app in start menu(or app center)

Pack binary

pip3 install pyinstaller
python pack.py
cd dist
ls

It's better to create a virtual environment before pack to decrease the size of binary

Development

Install python(>=3.8) and pip3

Linux:

sudo apt install python3 python3-pip

Windows: dowload python3

install packages like pyserial and PyQt5 etc.(list in requirements.txt)

cd COMTool
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

On Raspberry, python3-pyqt5 can be install by apt command:

sudo pip3 install --upgrade pyserial
sudo apt install python3-pyqt5

clone project

git clone https://github.com/Neutree/COMTool.git

code, resolve bugs or add new reatures

Recommended PyCharm IDE or vscode to get start

How to run: Generate translate binary files first(.mo)

python COMTool/i18n.py finish

Then execute main program

python COMTool/Main.py

pull request

Write your own plugins in minutes

see docs/plugins.md

Add translate

Install environment first(python pip packages in the requirments.txt)

apt install python3 python3-pip
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

If you need to add a new lanuage, or skip

Add locale in i18n.py

locales=["en", "zh_CN", "zh_TW", "ja"]

append your language to this list, locales can be found here or wikipedia, zh_CN for example means China Mainland, corresponding language is simplified Chinese characters, zh_TW means China Taiwan, and language is traditional Chinese characters, you can also only use zh to use simplified Chinese characters.