Handle ASCII art errors & use logging

Wrap ASCII-art generation in a try/except to avoid crashing when the asset or terminal ops fail (catch FileNotFoundError, RuntimeError, OSError and fall back to no banner). Add a clarifying comment for the Windows ANSI os.system("") workaround. In argument parsing, allow parse_args to accept argv, detect --no-art early, safely build the help description with a fallback default and log a warning on failure. Replace startup prints with logging.info and use the computed description for argparse. These changes make startup more robust and avoid surprising exceptions when ASCII art cannot be produced.

Author: C-Achard

dlclivegui/assets/ascii_art.py

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ def enable_windows_ansi_support() -> None:
     """
     if os.name == "nt":
         # This call toggles the console mode to enable VT processing in many hosts
-        os.system("")
+        #  Always leave the string empty.
+        os.system("")  # This is a known, safe workaround to enable ANSI support on Windows.
 
 
 def get_terminal_width(default: int = 80) -> int:
@@ -347,21 +348,24 @@ def build_help_description(
     enable_windows_ansi_support()
     desc = "DeepLabCut-Live GUI — launch the graphical interface." if desc is None else desc
     if static_banner is None:
-        banner = "\n".join(
-            generate_ascii_lines(
-                str(ASCII_IMAGE_PATH),
-                width=shutil.get_terminal_size((80, 24)).columns - 10,
-                aspect=0.5,
-                color=color,
-                fine=True,
-                invert=False,
-                crop_content=True,
-                crop_bg="white",
-                alpha_thresh=1,
-                crop_pad=1,
-                bg_bgr=(255, 255, 255),
+        try:
+            banner = "\n".join(
+                generate_ascii_lines(
+                    str(ASCII_IMAGE_PATH),
+                    width=shutil.get_terminal_size((80, 24)).columns - 10,
+                    aspect=0.5,
+                    color=color,
+                    fine=True,
+                    invert=False,
+                    crop_content=True,
+                    crop_bg="white",
+                    alpha_thresh=1,
+                    crop_pad=1,
+                    bg_bgr=(255, 255, 255),
+                )
             )
-        )
+        except (FileNotFoundError, RuntimeError, OSError):
+            banner = None
     else:
         banner = static_banner
     if banner and terminal_is_wide_enough(min_width=min_width):

dlclivegui/main.py

@@ -55,8 +55,22 @@ def _sigint_handler(_signum, _frame) -> None:
 
 
 def parse_args(argv=None):
+    if argv is None:
+        argv = sys.argv[1:]
+
+    default_desc = "Welcome to DeepLabCut-Live GUI!"
+    no_art_flag = "--no-art" in argv
+    if not no_art_flag:
+        try:
+            desc = art.build_help_description()
+        except Exception as e:
+            logging.warning(f"Failed to build ASCII art for help description: {e}")
+            desc = default_desc
+    else:
+        desc = default_desc
+
     parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
-        description=art.build_help_description(),
+        description=desc,
         formatter_class=argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter,
     )
     parser.add_argument("--no-art", action="store_true", help="Disable ASCII art in help and when launching.")
@@ -68,9 +82,9 @@ def main() -> None:
 
     # HiDPI pixmaps - always enabled in Qt 6 so no need to set it explicitly
     # QApplication.setAttribute(Qt.ApplicationAttribute.AA_UseHighDpiPixmaps, True)
-    print("Starting DeepLabCut-Live GUI...")
+    logging.info("Starting DeepLabCut-Live GUI...")
     if not args.no_art:
-        print(art.build_help_description(desc="Welcome to DeepLabCut-Live GUI!"))
+        logging.info(art.build_help_description(desc="Welcome to DeepLabCut-Live GUI!"))
 
     app = QApplication(sys.argv)
     app.setWindowIcon(QIcon(LOGO))