Cross-platform GUI development

[psaffrey]

I've been programming in Python for 5 or more years now and whenever I
want a quick-n-dirty GUI, I use Tkinter. This is partly because it's
the first toolkit I learnt, but also because it's part of the standard
Python distribution and therefore easy to get Python apps to work
cross platform - it usually requires almost no porting effort.

However, when I need a little bit more grunt, I tend to turn to Tix,
which I thought was also fairly standard. However, this week, I wrote
a Tix application under Linux which I'd really like to work on Mac OS
and it's proving fairly painful to get it going. There is no Tix in
the standard fink or apt repositories and when I download a tar-ball,
it wouldn't build because it had a lot of unmet dependencies. I then
read a post which said that only Tkinter/Python people really use Tix
anymore and people in tcl/tk moved onto better toolkits long ago.

My question is if Tix is old hat, what is the GUI toolkit I *should*
be using for quick-n-dirty cross platform GUI development? I guess
this is tangentially related to:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....ed0d40ffd0b1c0

I hope this isn't a stupid question. I'm wearing flame retardant
underwear.

Peter

[Alexandre Badez]

On Oct 12, 10:13 am, "psaff...@googl email.com"
<psaff...@googl email.comwrote:

I've been programming in Python for 5 or more years now and whenever I
want a quick-n-dirty GUI, I use Tkinter. This is partly because it's
the first toolkit I learnt, but also because it's part of the standard
Python distribution and therefore easy to get Python apps to work
cross platform - it usually requires almost no porting effort.

However, when I need a little bit more grunt, I tend to turn to Tix,
which I thought was also fairly standard. However, this week, I wrote
a Tix application under Linux which I'd really like to work on Mac OS
and it's proving fairly painful to get it going. There is no Tix in
the standard fink or apt repositories and when I download a tar-ball,
it wouldn't build because it had a lot of unmet dependencies. I then
read a post which said that only Tkinter/Python people really use Tix
anymore and people in tcl/tk moved onto better toolkits long ago.

My question is if Tix is old hat, what is the GUI toolkit I *should*
be using for quick-n-dirty cross platform GUI development? I guess
this is tangentially related to:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....thread/thread/...

I hope this isn't a stupid question. I'm wearing flame retardant
underwear.

Peter

Personnaly, I use PyQt simply because I prefere Qt to Gtk, witch is
much more integrated with all desktop than Gtk.
In fact, your application in Qt on Mac, Win or Linux look like a
native app.

Just a question of "feeling" I think; because most of those GUI
framework, offer quiet the same functionality.

[Nick Craig-Wood]

Alexandre Badez <al************ *@gmail.comwrot e:

On Oct 12, 10:13 am, "psaff...@googl email.com"
<psaff...@googl email.comwrote:

My question is if Tix is old hat, what is the GUI toolkit I *should*
be using for quick-n-dirty cross platform GUI development? I guess
this is tangentially related to:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....thread/thread/...

Personnaly, I use PyQt simply because I prefere Qt to Gtk, witch is
much more integrated with all desktop than Gtk.
In fact, your application in Qt on Mac, Win or Linux look like a
native app.

I'd recommend wxPython over those becase

1) native look and feel on all platforms
2) doesn't require expensive licensing for non-commercial apps (QT)
3) Isn't a pain to install on windows (GTK)

That said, times change and 1-3 may have changed since I last looked
at it!

--
Nick Craig-Wood <ni**@craig-wood.com-- http://www.craig-wood.com/nick

[Eric Brunel]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:13:29 +0200, ps******@google mail.com
<ps******@googl email.comwrote:

I've been programming in Python for 5 or more years now and whenever I
want a quick-n-dirty GUI, I use Tkinter. This is partly because it's
the first toolkit I learnt, but also because it's part of the standard
Python distribution and therefore easy to get Python apps to work
cross platform - it usually requires almost no porting effort.

However, when I need a little bit more grunt, I tend to turn to Tix,
which I thought was also fairly standard. However, this week, I wrote
a Tix application under Linux which I'd really like to work on Mac OS
and it's proving fairly painful to get it going. There is no Tix in
the standard fink or apt repositories and when I download a tar-ball,
it wouldn't build because it had a lot of unmet dependencies. I then
read a post which said that only Tkinter/Python people really use Tix
anymore and people in tcl/tk moved onto better toolkits long ago.

My question is if Tix is old hat, what is the GUI toolkit I *should*
be using for quick-n-dirty cross platform GUI development?

Since you're already used to Tkinter, I'd say: just wait... tcl/tk 8.5 is
on the way and it will bring a lot of new and long-awaited widgets, along
with native look on most platforms. See here:
http://wiki.tcl.tk/14796
and here for the look:
http://tktable.sf.net/tile/

Note that there are already Tkinter wrappers for these widgets, but they
may not be the ones that'll end up in the official distribution. If you
want to play with them, you can find them here:
https://sourceforge.net/project/show...roup_id=165637
(download tkinter-wrappers)

If you want to use these, you'll of course also need the latest beta of
tcl/tk 8.5, downloadable from here:
http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/8.5.html

I hope this isn't a stupid question. I'm wearing flame retardant
underwear.

You won't need these much around here... ;-)

HTH
--
python -c "print ''.join([chr(154 - ord(c)) for c in
'U(17zX(%,5.zmz 5(17l8(%,5.Z*(9 3-965$l7+-'])"

[Peter Decker]

On 10/12/07, ps******@google mail.com <ps******@googl email.comwrote:

My question is if Tix is old hat, what is the GUI toolkit I *should*
be using for quick-n-dirty cross platform GUI development?

I would heartily recommend Dabo (http://dabodev.com). It wraps the
wxPython toolkit, but eliminates 99% of the hassle in dealing with the
C++ feel of wxPython. And while it is supposed to be for
database-related apps, it works great for UI-only apps, which is what
I use it for.

--

# p.d.

[Grant Edwards]

On 2007-10-12, Alexandre Badez <al************ *@gmail.comwrot e:

Personnaly, I use PyQt simply because I prefere Qt to Gtk,
witch is much more integrated with all desktop than Gtk.

So you're claiming Qt is much more integrated with Gnome than
Gtk? The mind wobbles. The Gnome and XFCE desktops are _built_
using Gtk. A machine running a Gnome or XFCE desktop doesn't
even need to have Qt installed. The same can be said for
various other deskops (openstep, equinox, etc. -- most of them
other than KDE, actually).

In fact, your application in Qt on Mac, Win or Linux look like
a native app.

Qt sure doesn't look native on my Linux machines, and it's not
going to look native on any GTK-based desktops such an Gnome or
XFCE. Qt will only look native on Linux machines running a Qt
based desktop such as KDE.

Just a question of "feeling" I think; because most of those
GUI framework, offer quiet the same functionality.

I use wxPython, because it uses Gtk on Linux, and Gtk is
"native" for both me and for my Windows users.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! My Aunt MAUREEN was a
at military advisor to IKE &
visi.com TINA TURNER!!

[Grant Edwards]

On 2007-10-12, BlueBird <ph**@freehacke rs.orgwrote:

>I'd recommend wxPython over those becase

1) native look and feel on all platforms

Not true for KDE or other non-Gtk desktops.

You get it with PyQt as well.

Not true for Gnome or other non-Qt desktops.

There is no single "native look and feel" for Linux systems.

There are about a half-dozen different widget sets (Gtk and Qt
being the two big ones).

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! !! I am having fun!!!
at
visi.com

[Grant Edwards]

On 2007-10-12, Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.co mwrote:

I use wxPython, because it uses Gtk on Linux, and Gtk is
"native" for both me and for my Windows users.

I didn't state that very well.

What I meant was that wxPython uses Gtk under Linux (which is
native for me) so wxPython looks native for both me and my
Windows users.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I demand IMPUNITY!
at
visi.com

[Kevin Walzer]

ps******@google mail.com wrote:

>
My question is if Tix is old hat, what is the GUI toolkit I *should*
be using for quick-n-dirty cross platform GUI development? I guess
this is tangentially related to:

What widgets are you using in Tix? They may be available in BWidgets,
Tablelist, or other script-level Tk exetensions (i.e. they do not
require compiliaton). Wrappers for many of these are available at the
Tkinter wiki (http://tkinter.unpythonic.net/wiki/FrontPage)

--Kevin

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

[Dan Stromberg]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:30:13 -0500, Nick Craig-Wood wrote:

3) Isn't a pain to install on windows (GTK)

pygtk is easy to install on windows if you use cygwin.

I started developing a little ssh GUI frontend on a windows laptop using
cygwin pygtk and cygwin openssh. When I moved it over to a Linux VMware
on the same laptop to finish it, the code Just Worked.