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Getting Started

Ephyr is a cross-platform desktop application for viewing and labeling electrophysiology data (EEG, patch-clamp, multielectrode, and similar signals) on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It offers a lightweight yet powerful environment for multimodal annotation, with an adaptive interface and performance scaling for stable real-time operation under load. EphyR is open-source, Python-based, providing a flexible API for post-annotation data access and an add-on architecture that extends functionality without core-code modification.

EphyR addresses file-format diversity through a unified conversion pipeline supporting ABF, EDF, Intan RHD/RHS, Neuralynx, Open Ephys, XDAT, and NWB. Conversion preserves metadata including channel names, sampling rates, units, and electrode positions when available. It supports interdisciplinary collaboration and provides a simple starting point for beginners and neurobiologists and clinical neurophysiologists.

After installation, launch the app with the ephyr command. The About dialog (Help → About) shows the installed version as Ephyr v….

Ephyr application overview

Where to go next

Depending on what you need, continue with one of these sections:

  • Installation — install Ephyr from PyPI (or check the status of the .exe installer) and start the GUI.
  • Files Format — Workspace → Config → Record → Source → Segment, how to import recordings, and the on-disk layout.
  • Graphic User Interface — main window layout, menus, signal panel, and settings panel.
  • Add-ons — how Viewable, Runnable, and Transformation add-ons fit into the workflow, how to install and run them, and how to develop your own.
  • Reading Sources — how to import recordings into a workspace from Python, one at a time or in batches.
  • Using Labeled Data — how to load a labeled Record in Python (EphyrSessionManager), read signals, sessions, events, periods, and spike sets.