We Keep Coding

How to use a Virtual Environment?

I am using Python 3.7.9 Shell.
I created a virtual environment in this location
C:\Users\my_username\Desktop\Projects.venv
Inside of Python Shell, when I type: import numpy, which is in my .venv\lib folder, it says that the module does not exist.
Using Python Shell, how do I make use of the contents in .venv? In particular, the libraries located there?
Edit #1: Include Details
In my windows command line, it has (.venv) off to the left.
I have run the Activate file. I then started Python.
In my \lib\site-packages area, I have the requests library.
When I open up Python Shell and type "import requests", it says "no such library can be found"
I am using Windows 10
I installed the libraries while in the (.venv) environment.
Theory:
In the virtual environment, in Python Shell, it's searching a different location for libraries...now if I can just figure out where it's searching and how to change that...I might be able to make progress.
Edit #2: My Progress
My theory was correct. Despite using a virtual environment, it's not looking for the libraries installed in (.venv)\lib\site-packages, it's looking somewhere outside of that.
Now I just need to figure out how to make the Python code look for libraries inside of (.venv)\lib\site-packages when I'm in the virtual environment.
When I run the python.exe file inside of the (.venv)\Scripts location, it recognizes the virtual environment scripts.
If I click on my version of Python.Exe located in my C:...\Programs\Python 3.7 folder, it doesn't recognize them.
I was under the impression it didn't matter where I clicked on the Python.exe file if I did it after going to the virtual environment in the command line? Is this not true?
Edit #3: Important Links
Where Python Looks for Modules When Importing

Right from the official docs https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/venv.html#creating-virtual-environments
Once you’ve created a virtual environment, you may activate it.
On Windows, run:
tutorial-env\Scripts\activate.bat
On Unix or MacOS, run:
source tutorial-env/bin/activate
this is done in your shell before starting python at its prompt, and allows you to choose different python versions in addition to other benefits

How do you open Jupyter Notebook without Anaconda and from any directory?

I need help opening Python using the command line from other folders. Currently, I can only open Jupyter Notebook via the command line in the directory that Python was installed in. The following commands worked:
python -m jupyter notebook
or
python -m notebook
Excluding python -m or -m results in an error.
When trying to access python from any other folders using the same commands, I get the following error:
'python' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
A similar error is thrown when I use jupyter notebook or notebook.
I have downloaded Python and have used it using IDLE. I also installed Jupyter Notebook using pip; I did this by accessing Windows Powershell in the folder where Python is located.
Would appreciate it also if someone could explain what was happening and what I could do in the future to avoid this. Thank you for the help!

Python is not recognised outside its own folder (as you mention). To 'expose' the Python command to the console, you can add it to your Windows environment variables, as per the Python documentation.
To permanently modify the default environment variables, click Start and search for ‘edit environment variables’, or open System properties, Advanced system settings and click the Environment Variables button. In this dialog, you can add or modify User and System variables. To change System variables, you need non-restricted access to your machine (i.e. Administrator rights).
Concretely, in the environment variables of your system, edit the 'PATH' variable and add the folder with your Python executable to the path. After restarting your command prompt you should now be able to execute python commands.

While installing the Python, you can choose to add Python to PATH, if you check this while installing, you will have environment PATH variable in the machine.
Then you can just install notebook as you install any other packages/libraries in python.
pip install notebook
Once you do that, you should be able to start notebook from any folder/directory in your machine.
the command is pretty simple.
jupyter notebook

Setting SPSS 26 python to an Anaconda user-created environment

I want to link SPSS's python (Edit/Options/File Locations/Python installation) to an Anaconda user-created environment. The only thing I could figure out was to point SPSS to Anaconda install folder, and SPSS then uses the base environment.
Is there a way to make SPSS use another (user-created) environment ? I tried pointing SPSS to the new env's folder, but all I got was 'python installation not found'

IBM SPSS Statistics has the ability to use an external python besides the one installed by default with the program.
Once you've installed that external Python, you should be able to point to it in the Statistics UI under "Edit -> Options -> File Locations".
Make sure you have the correct path to the python executable specified here.

Unable to run python in CMD

I have recently started learning python using code academy and today I downloaded everything that I thought I would use. I downloaded Python and Atom. I have two separate drives on my computer. An SSD with not much storage and a hard drive with a lot of storage. My Windows is installed on the SSD, but I wanted to download python and atom on the hard drive, so I did so. When I installed Python I made sure to check add to PATH and the environmental variable thing. Now when I go to the command prompt, it shows "C:\Users\Gustavo>" but my python is installed on a different drive. Is there a way I could make this work? Thanks a lot.

There are two ways to install python:
Download directly from the website
Use a package manager
Case 1: Download directly from the website
Go to the python's website to download the version you would like to use.
Install the downloaded file (During the installation you can customize the installation directory)
Make sure to enable "Add python.exe to Path"
After installation has been completed, open your command prompt and type where python. Your python directory should be printed.
If all is good, then typing python should launch python in your command prompt. You can also run python by cd in the directory where your python is located and launch the .exe
You have mentioned about changing path and environmental variables, and that's probably for the purpose of keeping multiple versions of python. If that's the case, there's actually a quick fix for this:
Go to the folder where you installed Python.
Copy the python.exe file, and rename that copy in the same directory as python3.exe (If you installed version 2, then rename as python2.exe).
Now in command prompt type python2 or python3 and you should be able to launch either versions respectively.
Note: If you face issues regarding paths, then you should detail the error messages.
Case 2: Use a package manager
Choose a package manger: chocolatey, scoop, and others.
Check out these links for changing package manager's installation directory, installation method varies by the managers, so you should consult the developers should you experience problems:
chocolatey
scoop
Package managers will manage the versions for you, if you choose to install multiple versions. You should refer to the package manager's website for detailed information. However, you can quickly check the installed version by typing python --version. The python version number should be printed back to you, same applies to python3.
Double check your installation directory by which python
Type python or python3 to run your python of choice.
Lastly, you have mentioned atom. Atom is just a text editor: you can write python codes with it.
When you are done editing, you can open the command prompt and navigate to where your code resides, and type
python filename.py
This will run your code directly from the command prompt. There are many atom plugins available to make this process seamlessly integrated within atom. iPython and Jupyter plugins are first things that comes to my mind, you should specifically check out Hydrogen.

How to set default interpreter and keep things in order?

I was required to install anaconda for a CS course and used spyder and Rstudio.
Then, for a different class I used pycharm.
When I type on the command line "python -V" I get:
Python 3.6.1 :: Anaconda 4.4.0 (x86_64)
and I have no idea why it relates the python version I have installed with Anaconda (and why not pycharm?). I understand that the OS runs python 2.7 (shouldn't I get that instead? and when I type python3 -V get which version of python 3 I have?) and when I use something like Pycharm or Spyder I can choose which version I want from the ones I have installed and use it within the program, not for the terminal.
I just want to have everything in order and under control. I don't think I understand what Anaconda really is (to me is like a program that has more programs in it...). How do I keep anaconda to itself ? 1313
Also, should the packages I installed through Terminal work on both pycharm and spyder/anaconda even though when I used pycharm I used python 3.5 and anaconda 3.6?
I think I need definitions and help to get everything in order in my head and the computer.

Pycharm is just an application to help you write code. Pycharm itself does not run python code. This is why in PyCharm, you need to set the interpreter for a project, which could be any python binary. In PyCharm, go to Preferences > Project > Project Interpreter to see where you would set the python environment being used for a given project. This could point to any python installation on your machine, whether that is the python 2.7 located at /usr/bin/python or a virtual environment in your project dir.
The industry standard way to "keep things in order" is to use what are called virtual environments. See here: https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html. A virtual environment is literally just a copy of a python environment (binaries and everything) so whatever directory you specify. This allows you to configure your environment to however you need in your project without interfering with other projects you might have. For example, say project A requires django 1.9.2 but project b requires 1.5.3. By having a virtual environment for each project, dependencies won't conflict.
Since you have python3.6, I would recommend going to you project directory in a terminal window. Running python -m venv .venv to create a hidden directory which contains a local python environment of whatever your 3.6 python installation. You could then set your project interpret to use that environment. to connect to it on the command line, run source .venv/bin/activate from where you created your virtual environment. run which python again and see that python is now referencing your virtual environment :)
If you are using a mac (which I believe you are from what you said about python2.7), what likely happened is that your anaconda installer put the Python bin directory on your PATH environment variable. Type in which python to see what the python alias is referencing. You can undo this if you want by editing your ~/.bash_profile file if you really want.
You are more or less correct about anaconda. It is itself another distribution of python and contains a load of common libraries/dependencies that tend to make life easier. For a lot of data analysis, you likely won't even need to install another dependency with pip after downloading anaconda.
I suspect this won't be all too helpful at first as it is a lot to learn, but hopefully this points you in the right direction.