Running the source code
This page covers how to download and run the source code for the Babble App. It only takes 5 minutes!
1) Prerequisites
To get started, you will need to install:
Windows
If you're on on Windows, you'll also need to download:
macOS/Linux
For macOS/Linux:
1) Downloading The Babble App
Navigate to a folder where you would like to install the Babble App.
Then, open a terminal in your folder. Make sure its current directory matches the folder!
Now, run this command to download the Babble App to the folder:
git clone https://github.com/Project-Babble/ProjectBabble.git
2) Downloading Python
Now, we need to install a version of Python the Babble App is compatible with.
For reference, here is a compatibility table of the Babble App and different versions of Python.
| < 3.7 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.10 | 3.11 | 3.12 | 3.13 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ❌ | ⚠️ | ⚠️ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
In theory, the Babble App may work on versions of Python as low as 3.5. We cannot guarantee its stability these versions, proceed at your own risk if you do!
With the upcoming addition of Vive Facial Tracker support to the Babble App, the lowest version of Python supported going into the future will be 3.10.
Python 3.13 support is planned once key dependencies are built against 3.13, namely onnxruntime-directml and onnxruntime-gpu.
While not supported, nightly builds of the above dependencies exist that enable this. Microsoft outlines how to set this up here.
We recommend Python version 3.12.8. We'll use it for this tutorial!
In the same terminal, run:
pyenv init
If applicable, follow the instructions the above command outputs.
Once you have done that, in the same terminal as above, run:
pyenv install 3.12.8
pyenv global 3.12.8
This will set the global version of Python in your machine. If you ever need to change it, you can run the last command above with a different version.
3) Setting up
Now, in the same terminal as above, run:
Windows
cd BabbleApp
python -m venv venv
./venv/Scripts/activate.ps1
macOS/Linux
cd BabbleApp
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
This creates a virtual environment which is used to store the Babble App's dependencies. Now run:
pip install -r requirements.txt
And wait for pip to install everything. This might take some time!
4) Running the Babble App
Finally, you are ready to run the Babble App! Run:
python babbleapp.py
5) Subsequent Runs
For subsequent runs, you will need to activate the virtual environment prior to running the Babble App.
You can do this by running the last line in Step 3 in tandem with the command from Step 4, making sure your terminal window is in the same location as it was before.
Make sure you are in your BabbleApp folder prior to running these, or they will not work!
Windows
./venv/Scripts/activate.ps1
python babbleapp.py
macOS/Linux
source venv/bin/activate
python babbleapp.py
That's it!