Windows — serve.bat and its setup wizard

On Windows, serve.bat is the one file you double-click: the first time it is a setup wizard — what the installer and its report are on Linux and macOS — and every time after that it starts Parseh and opens the browser on it.

1. Finding a Python#

serve.bat looks for a Python before anything else, the Parseh environment first:

1. the Python named by the environment variable PARSEH_PYTHON, when it is set;
2. the folder’s own .runtime\env, which install.bat makes;
3. an ilya-frank environment that an Anaconda, a Miniconda, a Miniforge or a micromamba keeps;
4. failing those, any Python 3.8 or newer: the py launcher, python, python3, or one in the usual install folders. The Microsoft Store’s python, which only opens the Store, does not count.

When the computer has no Python at all, it says so and offers two ways on. The simplest is to close the window and double-click install.bat, which brings its own Python with everything else Parseh needs. Or, where the Windows package manager is there, it asks Install Python 3.12 now? [Y/N] and installs it with winget; without winget, it opens the download page of python.org.

2. The wizard#

The wizard runs by itself the first time — when it has never run through, or when the books’ library page has never been built. It goes in five steps; a question takes its default, Y, when you only press Enter.

No page has a button that runs it again. It knows it has run through by a small file it leaves in the Parseh folder, .setup-done: delete that file and double-click serve.bat, and the wizard runs once more (from a command prompt, serve.bat setup does the same — see For the command line).

1. Welcome. What Parseh is, and what the wizard is about to do. Press Enter to begin.

2. This computer. Four groups of checks, each line marked ok, MISS for something missing, or -- for something optional that is not there:

• Required to serve: the Python it found — the ilya-frank environment’s when that is the one — the bundled web fonts, and a Japanese or Chinese font when there is a book or a video in that language (Windows ships Yu Mincho and Meiryo, so here that is taken as given).
• Needed once, to make the certificate: openssl. The wizard finds one that Git for Windows or a conda brought with it; where there is none it asks Install OpenSSL with winget now? (OpenSSL Light, from Shining Light Productions — Windows asks you to allow the installer).
• The environment: every package Parseh’s environment lists, and pkuseg’s models. When something is missing it asks Install it now? and does what install.bat does: makes the environment in .runtime\ with micromamba, or adds what an older one lacks, compiles this guide and fetches the models. It then carries on in the environment’s own Python, so the readers it builds and the server it starts are the environment’s.
• Optional tools: LuaLaTeX, ffmpeg and pdftotext, and Tailscale — with it installed, the address of your private network of devices is printed and put in the certificate too.

3. The books. Every book on the shelf, filed under its language, with its narration and its alignment; then it builds every reader and the library page, and compiles this guide — every time, whatever step 2 installed, unless the guide is already compiled from the same pages.

4. The certificate. Parseh serves HTTPS with a certificate it makes for itself, in .tls\, for every name and address the computer has. Two things happen once, and the wizard says so: every browser warns about that certificate — it is yours, accept it (in Chrome: Advanced, then Proceed) — and Windows Firewall asks whether Python may accept connections. Allow it, or only this computer can reach Parseh.

5. Done. How many checks passed and how many are missing, what to do from now on, and Start Parseh now?

3. Every time after that#

A double-click on serve.bat starts the server in its own window and opens the browser on https://localhost:7654/:

Parseh is up at https://localhost:7654/ -- this window is its log.  Close it, press Ctrl-C,or use the stop button on any page to stop the server.

The window is the server: what it prints is the log. The ⏻ stop button on any page, Ctrl-C in the window, or closing the window stops it. When Parseh is already running, a double-click only opens the browser on it.

Without OpenSSL there is no certificate, and Parseh serves plain http:// instead, and says so. On this computer everything works. From a phone or another computer everything works but three things, which browsers allow only on a secure address — and localhost is the one plain address they count as secure: the studio’s copying, capturing a video’s frame for a card, and recording a YouTube video’s sound from its tab (From a phone or another computer says which buttons those are). The copy buttons of the books, the videos and the card sheets go on working there, the old way.

To get the certificate, run the wizard again (above): it offers to install OpenSSL. Once OpenSSL is there — or Git for Windows, which brings one — start Parseh again, and it makes the certificate as it starts.

4. For the command line#

In a command prompt in the Parseh folder, serve.bat takes:

serve.bat               the wizard once; then start and open itserve.bat 9000          ... on another port for this start (Settings >                        Network keeps the port; 7654 on a fresh install)serve.bat setup         run the wizard againserve.bat stop          stop a running serverserve.bat status        is it running, and whereserve.bat cert          a fresh certificate (then stop, start)serve.bat readers       every reader and the library page, rebuiltserve.bat --no-browser  start without opening a browser window

A fresh certificate is what a computer whose addresses have changed needs — though Parseh now notices that as it starts and makes one by itself: From a phone or another computer says why, and what a phone has to trust.

serve.bat only finds the Python; the rest is lib\launcher.py, which does on Windows what ./serve.sh and ./install.sh do elsewhere.