.. _open_a_popy_command_prompt: 

|popy| Terminal
##############################

For simplicity, |popy| is a text-based *command line* tool that runs in an
operating system terminal.

This terminal requires a set of environment variables to be defined 
that |popy| depends upon to work correctly. There are three easy ways to 
set up the |popy| environment:

* Run ``<PoPy installation folder>/popy_cmd.exe`` via Windows Explorer. This will open a |popy| command prompt in the installation folder.
* Left mouse click on the '|popy| Command Prompt' shortcut on your Desktop in the in the |popy| folder of the Windows Start menu. (This calls ``popy_cmd.exe`` for the *most recent* |popy| installation.)
* Open a terminal (|ie| a command prompt or Windows Powershell) in any folder and type ``popy`` to set up the environment. This requires |popy| to be in the user's ``PATH`` environment variable already. If it is not, first run ``popy_cmd.exe`` from the installation path instead.

.. note::

    If there are multiple |popy| installations, we recommend that you run 
    ``popy_cmd.exe`` from the desired installation folder to ensure that the
    correct version of |popy| is run. In any case, you should check that your 
    |popy| environment is for the correct version by running ``popy info`` 
    before proceeding.

.. note::

    There *should* be no significant difference between running |popy| in 
    a Command Prompt versus running it in a Powershell.
    We have, however, seen examples where running in a Command Prompt took 
    significantly longer than in a Powershell for reasons we have not 
    yet established.

In the terminal, you should see something like:

.. literalinclude:: /reference/commands/popy_help.txt
    :language: console
    
in pale blue text on a black background.

This summary of the various |popy| commands indicates that |popy| 
is ready for use.

