"Python environment not configured." error when trying to turn on 'Eye Tracking' in CodeGRITS Configuration dialog window

[jnareb]

I have tried to turn on 'Eye Tracking' (at least with mouse) in CodeGRITS Configuration dialog window.

However, when I do that, the alert appears with the "Python environment not configured." error, see the following screenshot:

This problem happens regardless of whether I use the default 'python' as Python environment, or whether I provide path to python.exe that the project is using.

If the problem is that some package that should be installed is missing, the error message should have said so.

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I use PyCharm 2025.2.0.1 on Windows 11 Pro, 24H2, with Python 3.13 as python.exe in venv.

I have installed CodeGRITS 0.3.2 from JetBrains Marketplace: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/28118-codegrits/versions/stable

[TTangNingzhi]

Yes. This is because the original implementation of CodeGRITS was designed to support Tobii Pro eye trackers and therefore requires the tobii-research package to be installed in the Python environment. The supported OS and Python versions are listed here: Supported platforms and languages. This means you need to use Python 3.8 or 3.10 in order to successfully install tobii-research.

Could you please let us know more about your experimental requirements? Do you have access to Tobii Pro eye-tracking devices? Are you planning to use mouse tracking in addition to IDE tracking? In a future release, we may update CodeGRITS to support mouse tracking even when tobii-research cannot be installed, as this would provide a more reasonable fallback depending on user needs.

For now, the simplest workaround is to switch to Python 3.10, install tobii-research and the other required packages, and then use mouse tracking alongside it.

[jnareb]

The error message should be in my opinion made more clear, and directly reference documentation about Python environment requirements.

I don't have access to Tobii Pro eye-tracking device; what I would like to do is to add support for iMotions API to CodeGRITS, either in Java or in Python.

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By the way, I have created simple server that translates from iMotions Lab API to iTrace Core API for iTrace-JetBrains plugin in Python, and it seems to work.

[TTangNingzhi]

Thanks for the suggestions! I agree it should be made clear. I also think adding support for the iMotions API is feasible with some adaptations to these Python scripts: Supporting New Eye Trackers. We would really appreciate it if you’d like to develop this and contribute to CodeGRITS! If you need any help, please feel free to reach out.

iTrace’s implementation separates the eye-tracking data processing into a server, which avoids many of the tricky design issues of running Python scripts internally in the plugin. CodeGRITS follows our direction for convenience (with the expectation that the Python runtime component will continue to improve as we develop). I hope the diversity of data sources and recording formats supported by CodeGRITS will be helpful to you.

[jnareb]

CodeGRITS, from what I see, gathers more information than iTrace toolkit.

Separating eye-tracking processing into a server (a separate component) has its advantages and disadvantages. If one is supporting only a single ecosystem (JetBrains), and not trying to support many (e.g., Visual Studio, VS Code, SublimeText, Notepad++), I don't think it is as much of advantage, in my opinion.

Adding support for a new eye-tracker (or eye-tracking ecosystem, like iMotions Lab) to CodeGRITS looks non-trivial. I think it would make CodeGRITS code better to extract common code into base class, and create separate TobiiEyeTracker and PyautoguiEyeTracker / MouseEyeTracker as its subclasses.

[jnareb]

I have proposed the improvement in pull request #14

Note however that I was unable to test the change. This is my first time writing a patch for JetBrains IDE plugin, and I had trouble running ./gradlew build (as described in the documentation on how to install the plugin from sources).

Result of running `./gradlew build` in the Terminal tab in IntelliJ IDEA

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred configuring root project 'CodeGRITS'.
> Could not resolve all files for configuration ':classpath'.
   > Could not resolve org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin:1.13.3.
     Required by:
         project : > org.jetbrains.intellij:org.jetbrains.intellij.gradle.plugin:1.13.3
      > No matching variant of org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin:1.13.3 was found. The consumer was configured to find a library for use during runtime, compatible with Java 8, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally, as well as attribute 'org.gradle.plugin.api-version' with value '8.1.1' but:
          - Variant 'apiElements' capability org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin:1.13.3 declares a library, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares a component for use during compile-time, compatible with Java 11 and the consumer needed a component for use during runtime, compatible with Java 8                                                                                                                                              
              - Other compatible attribute:
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '8.1.1')                                                                                
          - Variant 'javadocElements' capability org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin:1.13.3 declares a component for use during runtime, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares documentation and the consumer needed a library
              - Other compatible attributes:
                  - Doesn't say anything about its target Java version (required compatibility with Java 8)                                                                    
                  - Doesn't say anything about its elements (required them packaged as a jar)                                                                                  
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '8.1.1')                                                                                
          - Variant 'runtimeElements' capability org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin:1.13.3 declares a library for use during runtime, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares a component, compatible with Java 11 and the consumer needed a component, compatible with Java 8
              - Other compatible attribute:
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '8.1.1')                                                                                
          - Variant 'sourcesElements' capability org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin:1.13.3 declares a component for use during runtime, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares documentation and the consumer needed a library
              - Other compatible attributes:
                  - Doesn't say anything about its target Java version (required compatibility with Java 8)                                                                    
                  - Doesn't say anything about its elements (required them packaged as a jar)                                                                                  
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '8.1.1')                                                                                
          - Variant 'testFixturesApiElements' capability org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin-test-fixtures:1.13.3 declares a library, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares a component for use during compile-time, compatible with Java 11 and the consumer needed a component for use during runtime, compatible with Java 8                                                                                                                                              
              - Other compatible attribute:
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '8.1.1')                                                                                
          - Variant 'testFixturesRuntimeElements' capability org.jetbrains.intellij.plugins:gradle-intellij-plugin-test-fixtures:1.13.3 declares a library for use during runtime, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares a component, compatible with Java 11 and the consumer needed a component, compatible with Java 8
              - Other compatible attribute:
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '8.1.1')                                                                                

* Try:
> Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace.
> Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.
> Run with --scan to get full insights.

* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org

BUILD FAILED in 7s

[jnareb]

Note however that I was unable to test the change. This is my first time writing a patch for JetBrains IDE plugin, and I had trouble running ./gradlew build (as described in the documentation on how to install the plugin from sources).

I have solved the issue by downloading JetBrains Runtime from https://github.com/JetBrains/JetBrainsRuntime/releases, and running:

JAVA_HOME=/c/Users/jnareb/.jdks/jbr-21.0.8-windows-x64-b895.146 ./gradlew build

[jnareb]

The proposed pull request #15 makes it possible to use Mouse as eye-tracker without having to install tobii_research module.

This reduces the difficulty to solve the "Python environment not configured." error.