Windows OS support (beyond WSL)

[neiljp]

Currently ZT does not run in Windows environments, excepting eg. virtual machines running a supported OS. One of the reasons noted for the lack of support is that urwid appears to require the fcntl call in some cases urwid/urwid#152.

One possible solution involves a cross-platform wrapper such as portalocker (available on PyPI and at https://github.com/WoLpH/portalocker). This may need support in urwid rather than ZT, but may be the first step forward.

Note that there may be other issues, but the above is a definite blocker to Windows support.

For reference, also see #205 for testing on windows.

[rht]

Or use WSL for now: #178 (comment). Since Dragon NaturallySpeaking (for accessibility purpose, and there doesn't seem to be other viable alternative for dictation?) runs on Windows, this is the only way to run both.

[amanagr]

I use WSL and zt works well without any extra setup on it. I actually test any cross-platform changes on WSL too for zt.

[neiljp]

I've renamed this issue to narrow its applicability; right now ZT should run fine in a WSL environment.

I'm leaving this open to track the issue, but it's certainly not a priority given we have WSL support now.

However, anyone is welcome to contribute a PR to make this reality 👍

It is possible that urwid could provide a workaround for the fcntl issue, but otherwise a PR would need to do so. We'd also want at least some documentation and CI support.