neither covert nor qcovert work out of the box

installation setup, from checkout:

py -3 -m venv py3venv
py3venv\Scripts\activate.bat
pip install -e ".[gui]"

Errors:

qcovert.exe no output, no GUI.

(py3venv) C:\code\py\covert-encryption>python -m covert.gui
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 198, in _run_module_as_main
File "", line 88, in _run_code
File "C:\code\py\covert-encryption\covert\gui\__main__.py", line 3, in
from covert.gui import app
File "C:\code\py\covert-encryption\covert\gui\app.py", line 8, in
from covert.gui import res
File "C:\code\py\covert-encryption\covert\gui\res.py", line 3, in
from covert.gui.util import datafile
File "C:\code\py\covert-encryption\covert\gui\util.py", line 3, in
import pkg_resources
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pkg_resources'

Looks like Python 3.12 has removed pkg_resources from the standard library.

pip install setuptools

seems to allow qconvert to then display GUI.

covert with no params help indicates, `covert edit cipher.dat` should work but appears to need a file already:

(py3venv) C:\code\py\covert-encryption>covert edit cipher.dat
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 198, in _run_module_as_main
File "", line 88, in _run_code
File "C:\code\py\covert-encryption\py3venv\Scripts\covert.exe\__main__.py", line 7, in
File "C:\code\py\covert-encryption\covert\cli\__main__.py", line 58, in main
modes[args.mode](args) # Normal run
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\code\py\covert-encryption\covert\cli\edit.py", line 19, in main_edit
with open(fname, "rb") as f:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'cipher.dat'

Opening a single line file generated with qconvert with `covert edit cipher.dat` results in letters per line.
Also there are appear to be non-ascii characters in the tool which Windows CMD can not display:


Start by reproducing the editable install and the qconvert and covert edit commands on Python 3.12 and Windows. Read covert/gui/util.py, covert/gui/res.py, covert/gui/app.py, covert/cli/edit.py, and covert/cli/__main__.py, then trace the reported import, missing-file, output-format, and non-ASCII display failures. Done means the documented commands work from a fresh setup and the reported Windows behavior is addressed.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.