helpers.py

import os
import sys

def is_running_standalone() -> bool:
    """
    are we running from a PyInstaller'd executable?
    if so, then we'll be able to access `sys._MEIPASS` for the packaged resources.
    """
    return hasattr(sys, "frozen") and hasattr(sys, "_MEIPASS")

def get_default_root() -> str:
    """
    get the file system path to the default resources directory.
    under PyInstaller, this comes from _MEIPASS.
    under source, this is the root directory of the project.
    """
    if is_running_standalone():
        # pylance/mypy don't like `sys._MEIPASS` because this isn't standard.
        # its injected by pyinstaller.
        # so we'll fetch this attribute dynamically.
        return getattr(sys, "_MEIPASS")
    else:
        return os.path.dirname(__file__)
        # return os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "..")