error installing on Windows 11, Python 3.9

[mtbjonny]

Cannot install in Windows 11, Python 3.9 (or later). Tried multiple PCs. Same error - Freetype and PNG cannot be built.

My understanding is that this package is supported by 3.9? Fairly new at installing python packages, so do please excuse me if there's an obvious answer here..

Error copied below:
PS C:\Users\mtbjo\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\Scripts> ./pip install alpaca-backtrader-api
Collecting alpaca-backtrader-api
Downloading alpaca_backtrader_api-0.15.0-py3-none-any.whl (23 kB)
Collecting pandas==1.3.2
Downloading pandas-1.3.2-cp39-cp39-win_amd64.whl (10.2 MB)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 10.2/10.2 MB 11.4 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting matplotlib==2.2.5
Downloading matplotlib-2.2.5.tar.gz (36.7 MB)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 36.7/36.7 MB 10.2 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Preparing metadata (setup.py) ... error
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× python setup.py egg_info did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> [61 lines of output]
============================================================================
Edit setup.cfg to change the build options

  BUILDING MATPLOTLIB
              matplotlib: yes [2.2.5]
                  python: yes [3.9.9 (tags/v3.9.9:ccb0e6a, Nov 15 2021,
                          18:08:50) [MSC v.1929 64 bit (AMD64)]]
                platform: yes [win32]

  REQUIRED DEPENDENCIES AND EXTENSIONS
                   numpy: yes [version 1.22.2]
        install_requires: yes [handled by setuptools]
                  libagg: yes [pkg-config information for 'libagg' could not
                          be found. Using local copy.]
                freetype: no  [The C/C++ header for freetype
                          (freetype2\ft2build.h) could not be found.  You may
                          need to install the development package.]
                     png: no  [The C/C++ header for png (png.h) could not be
                          found.  You may need to install the development
                          package.]
                   qhull: yes [pkg-config information for 'libqhull' could not
                          be found. Using local copy.]

  OPTIONAL SUBPACKAGES
             sample_data: yes [installing]
                toolkits: yes [installing]
                   tests: no  [skipping due to configuration]
          toolkits_tests: no  [skipping due to configuration]

  OPTIONAL BACKEND EXTENSIONS
                  macosx: no  [Mac OS-X only]
                  qt5agg: no  [PySide2 not found; PyQt5 not found]
                  qt4agg: no  [PySide not found; PyQt4 not found]
                 gtk3agg: no  [Requires pygobject to be installed.]
               gtk3cairo: no  [Requires cairocffi or pycairo to be installed.]
                  gtkagg: no  [Requires pygtk]
                   tkagg: yes [installing; run-time loading from Python Tcl /
                          Tk]
                   wxagg: no  [requires wxPython]
                     gtk: no  [Requires pygtk]
                     agg: yes [installing]
                   cairo: no  [cairocffi or pycairo not found]
               windowing: yes [installing]

  OPTIONAL LATEX DEPENDENCIES
                  dvipng: no
             ghostscript: no
                   latex: no
                 pdftops: no

  OPTIONAL PACKAGE DATA
                    dlls: no  [skipping due to configuration]

  ============================================================================
                          * The following required packages can not be built:
                          * freetype, png
                          * Please check http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packa
                          * ges/freetype.htm for instructions to install
                          * freetype
                          * Please check http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packa
                          * ges/libpng.htm for instructions to install png
  [end of output]

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: metadata-generation-failed

× Encountered error while generating package metadata.
╰─> See above for output.

note: This is an issue with the package mentioned above, not pip.
hint: See above for details.

[swapnillondhe24]

have you found solution i am facing same problem and after trying everything on StackOverflow still it is not resolved

[mtbjonny]

Hi there, Unfortunately, no. At this point, I'm having to work around the issue by not using this....

[holicst]

I also have the same issue. Why is matplotlib needed anyway for trading on Alpaca?