Make an installer for python project

Question

I downloaded an open source project http://gmapcatcher.googlecode.com/files/GMapCatcher-0.7.2.0.tar.gz and I am trying to modify a few things in the code but don't know how to test the code!
I tried to make an installer for the project but nothing worked till now maybe I didn't follow the right steps or I am missing somthing.

my question is how can I modify the code and test it ? and how can I make an installer for this project (I know there is an installer already in google but I want to make it myself).

Answer 1

Looks like the package has a setup.py for the use with distutils. The setup.py works kind of like Makefile for python. The way you use it is (in the directory where setup.py is located:

$ python setup.py command

Where "command" is... well... a command. Type

$ python setup.py --help

for more information. The two basic commands are build and install. install installs, as the name suggests, the package to your system. It is not probably going to do anything like create shortcuts on your desktop or anything like that. It simply installs the Python package into your Python installation. Judging by the contents of setup.py, it seems they're somehow using py2exe (google it; being a newbie I can only include one hyperlink in my answer) to prepare the Windows installer.

To simply run the software, however, it seems all you need to do is to unpack it and do

$ python maps.py

in the package's root directory - provided you have all the necessary dependencies already installed, of course.