This describes how to get started with napari in a full python environment, from scratch.
There are many ways to get python on your computer. You can just go to https://www.python.org/downloads/ to get python, but anaconda is nice for two reasons:
- It provides a built in "environment" manager (called
conda
) that allows you to create isolated virtual environments (which are basically just folders somewhere on your computer that have, among other things, a handful of packages that you have installed). Virtual environments are useful because you can easily create multiple environments with different combinations of packages and versions without messing up your "root" environment (more on this below). - For some combinations of packages, it can be hard to get them all working together, so Anaconda ships with a complete working environment that already contains [the main packages in the scientific python stack](https://docs.anaconda.com/an