Technical requirements

Operating System

Moulti requires a Unix-friendly operating system. Specifically, it requires an operating system that implements AF_UNIX+SOCK_STREAM local network sockets. Microsoft Windows does implement such sockets but the Python interpreter does not expose this feature to applications yet. Progress on this matter ought to happen through Python issue #77589. Once this issue is resolved, porting Moulti to Microsoft Windows should become possible.

Python

Moulti requires Python ≥ 3.10 because:

• Moulti leverages Textual, which requires Python 3.8 or later.
• Moulti uses send_fds and recv_fds, which require Python ≥ 3.9.
• Tests using Python 3.9.18 almost immediately hit blocking issues, specifically:
  • steps not reacting to keyboard/mouse events ;
  • Task got Future <Future pending> attached to a different loop Python exception.
• Python 3.9 isn't receiving regular bug fixes anymore.
• Moulti type hints use PEP 604 (Allow writing union types as X | Y) syntax, which requires Python ≥ 3.10.

Textual

Textual is a Rapid Application Development framework for Python. Textual enables developers to build applications featuring sophisticated user interfaces that run in the terminal.

Moulti requires Textual 1.0.x.

Details:

• version 1.0 is an important milestone for Textual-based applications: 0.x means "possible breaking changes anytime" whereas 1.x means "no breaking changes until 2.0"
• version 0.89.0 is a mere milestone on the way to Textual 1.0.0
• version 0.88.0 is a mere milestone on the way to Textual 1.0.0
• version 0.87.0 introduces the position: absolute TCSS property
• version 0.86.0 replaces the dark vs light modes with themes; Moulti went through this breaking change on its way to Textual 1.0.0
• version 0.84.0 introduces a rendering issue that affects focus indicators
• version 0.83.0 removes the need to override Screen.ALLOW_IN_MAXIMIZED_VIEW
• version 0.79.0 supports maximizing widgets
• version 0.76.0 supports dynamic keybindings
• version 0.53.0 exposes ANSI themes
• version 0.47.0 was the minimum requirement before the implementation of ANSI themes
• version 0.46.0 fails with message "Error in stylesheet"
• version 0.24.0 fails with message "ImportError: Package 'textual.widgets' has no class 'Collapsible'"
• version 0.1.13 fails with message "ImportError: cannot import name 'work' from 'textual'"