Future Python Gui?

[bcwhite]

I've been trying to find out what the future of Python is with regard
to Tk. It seems there are several interfaces that make use of new
functionality, including "Tile" and "Ttk".

If I want to write a program that will run under the standard Python
distribution of the future, what extension module should I work with
today?

Thanks!

-- Brian

[kirkjobsluder]

On Apr 17, 9:28 pm, "bcwh...@pobox. com" <bcwh...@pobox. comwrote:

I've been trying to find out what the future of Python is with regard
to Tk. It seems there are several interfaces that make use of new
functionality, including "Tile" and "Ttk".

If I want to write a program that will run under the standard Python
distribution of the future, what extension module should I work with
today?

I've been doing a lot of reading this month.

At the moment, none of the toolkits available strike me as being in a
position to become the next tkinter, and it seems like core python
development is moving away from extensions that might be
better produced by other parties. Everyone and their cousin
have different ideas about how a GUI should be built including
how it hooks into other services. Cross-platform, it seems like
wxPython has a considerable edge over jython+SWT or Swing.
But platform-specific frameworks are also pretty important.

I'd say that the best bet is to learn swig and similar
bridging, expanding, and embedding mechanisms.
Python GUI programming is likely to involve either
python hooking into frameworks like Cocoa, Qt, or
wxWidgets, python embedded in frameworks
like Java or .NET, or flavors of python used
as domain-specific languages in applications such as
emacs, vim, and OpenOffice.org.

Thanks!

-- Brian

[Richard Jones]

kirkjobsluder wrote:

I'd say that the best bet is to learn swig and similar
bridging, expanding, and embedding mechanisms.

For GUI programming this would seem overkill. Pick a GUI toolkit and it's
almost guaranteed to be wrapped for use in Python already.
Richard

[kirkjobsluder]

On Apr 18, 2:07 am, Richard Jones <richardjo...@o ptushome.com.au >
wrote:

kirkjobsluder wrote:

I'd say that the best bet is to learn swig and similar
bridging, expanding, and embedding mechanisms.

For GUI programming this would seem overkill. Pick a GUI toolkit and it's
almost guaranteed to be wrapped for use in Python already.

Perhaps a bit. I'm not saying that everyone should wrap their own
code,
but many of the currently existing wrappers are quite thin, and
understanding
how to use and debug wrapped GUI code might put one in a better
position
over knowing a particular toolkit.

>
Richard

[Kevin Walzer]

bc*****@pobox.c om wrote:

I've been trying to find out what the future of Python is with regard
to Tk. It seems there are several interfaces that make use of new
functionality, including "Tile" and "Ttk".

If I want to write a program that will run under the standard Python
distribution of the future, what extension module should I work with
today?

Thanks!

-- Brian

Tile is available right now in Tk as an extension package, and a Tkinter
wrapper for it can be found here:

http://tkinter.unpythonic.net/wiki/TileWrapper

Tile will be integrated into Tk's core when 8.5 is released. It's
supposed to enter beta testing Real Soon Now. However, I imagine that
Python/Tkinter will depend on Tk 8.4 for the foreseeable
future--certainly 8.5 won't be supported officially before a full,
stable release is made. Perhaps in Python 2.6?
--
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com

[bcwhite]

I'd say that the best bet is to learn swig and similar

bridging, expanding, and embedding mechanisms.
Python GUI programming is likely to involve either
python hooking into frameworks like Cocoa, Qt, or
wxWidgets, python embedded in frameworks
like Java or .NET, or flavors of python used
as domain-specific languages in applications such as
emacs, vim, and OpenOffice.org.

If this were just a tool for me, it wouldn't matter. My concern is
distribution. If anybody who wants to run my software then they also
have to go through all the trouble to install these extensions, none
of which seem to have decent instructions. I'm an old-time hack and I
have trouble getting them to work. A simple user won't have a chance!

If Python doesn't declare an official Gui system, then it'll be
fragmented, inconsistent, and unsupportable.

I wouldn't mind using just Tkinter, despite it's primative look,
except that it doesn't support more advanced widgets like "notebook".

-- Brian

[Kevin Walzer]

bc*****@pobox.c om wrote:

>I'd say that the best bet is to learn swig and similar
bridging, expanding, and embedding mechanisms.
Python GUI programming is likely to involve either
python hooking into frameworks like Cocoa, Qt, or
wxWidgets, python embedded in frameworks
like Java or .NET, or flavors of python used
as domain-specific languages in applications such as
emacs, vim, and OpenOffice.org.

If this were just a tool for me, it wouldn't matter. My concern is
distribution. If anybody who wants to run my software then they also
have to go through all the trouble to install these extensions, none
of which seem to have decent instructions. I'm an old-time hack and I
have trouble getting them to work. A simple user won't have a chance!

This is what deployment tools such as py2app or py2exe are for--to wrap
all the bits up into a simple package that the end user just installs,
without worrying about dependencies.

--
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com

[bcwhite]

Tile is available right now in Tk as an extension package, and a Tkinter

wrapper for it can be found here:

http://tkinter.unpythonic.net/wiki/TileWrapper

That site seems to be down (500 Internal Server Error).

Tile will be integrated into Tk's core when 8.5 is released. It's
supposed to enter beta testing Real Soon Now. However, I imagine that
Python/Tkinter will depend on Tk 8.4 for the foreseeable
future--certainly 8.5 won't be supported officially before a full,
stable release is made. Perhaps in Python 2.6?

That is okay with me. It'll be a long time before I get to a point
where I'll need easy release. But knowing that it will be part of a
future release will also mean I don't have to worry about refactoring
everything if the toolkit I'm using goes out of style and is replaced
by something else.

Out of curiosity... Did that page have install instructions for
Tile? Other pages I've seen talk about it but don't say how to
integrate it in to a python installation (under Windows or Linux).

-- Brian

[hlubenow]

bc*****@pobox.c om wrote:

If this were just a tool for me, it wouldn't matter. My concern is
distribution. If anybody who wants to run my software then they also
have to go through all the trouble to install these extensions, none
of which seem to have decent instructions. I'm an old-time hack and I
have trouble getting them to work. A simple user won't have a chance!

If Python doesn't declare an official Gui system, then it'll be
fragmented, inconsistent, and unsupportable.

I guess that's why Tkinter, despite its primitive look, has made its way
into the Python-distribution and I think, for the same reason it will stay
there, until it can be replaced by something similar consistent.

H.

[Jarek Zgoda]

bc*****@pobox.c om napisa³(a):

If this were just a tool for me, it wouldn't matter. My concern is
distribution. If anybody who wants to run my software then they also
have to go through all the trouble to install these extensions, none
of which seem to have decent instructions. I'm an old-time hack and I
have trouble getting them to work. A simple user won't have a chance!

I am not a hacker, just a software developer, but I'd have no problems
in either installing PyGTK on Ubuntu box (sudo apt-get install
python-gtk2, but it's installed by default anyway) or on Windows XP
machine (double click on installer icon). "Simple user" is not an idiot
either and if she can read English, she wouldn't have hard time too.

The rumours on "problems installing GUI toolkits" are greatly exagerated
IMO.

--
Jarek Zgoda
http://jpa.berlios.de/