How is GUI programming in Python?

[Chris Stewart]

I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.

Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?
I'm curious to hear opinions on that.

Chris Stewart
cs*********@gma il.com

[Paul Rubin]

Chris Stewart <cs*********@gm ail.comwrites:

I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.
...
Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?

If by "best" you mean "easiest", that is probably tkinter, which
comes with python. It is somewhat rudimentary and the widgets that
come with it don't look so great. But if you just want to put up
GUI's with basic functionality and not much glitz, it is ok for most
such purposes.
out how to use

[Benjamin]

On Apr 9, 8:54 pm, Chris Stewart <cstewart...@gm ail.comwrote:

I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.

Since it's Python, it will be a lot less painless than anything
else. :)

>
Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?
I'm curious to hear opinions on that.

Tkinter is the easiest for little apps, but when I'm doing anything
for real, I use PyQt.

>
Chris Stewart
cstewart...@gma il.com

[Kam-Hung Soh]

On Apr 10, 12:35 pm, Benjamin <musiccomposit. [e-mail] te:

On Apr 9, 8:54 pm, Chris Stewart <cstewart...@gm ail.comwrote:I' ve always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it

further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.

Since it's Python, it will be a lot less painless than anything
else. :)

Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?
I'm curious to hear opinions on that.

Tkinter is the easiest for little apps, but when I'm doing anything
for real, I use PyQt.

Chris Stewart
cstewart...@gma il.com

Since the OP has Swing programming experience, what about Jython
(http://www.jython.org/Project/index.html)?

"Jython is an implementation of the high-level, dynamic, object-
oriented language Python written in 100% Pure Java, and seamlessly
integrated with the Java platform. It thus allows you to run Python on
any Java platform."

--
Kam-Hung Soh <a href="http://kamhungsoh.com/blog">Software Salariman</
a>

[CM]

On Apr 9, 9:54 pm, Chris Stewart <cstewart...@gm ail.comwrote:

I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.

Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?
I'm curious to hear opinions on that.

Chris Stewart
cstewart...@gma il.com

I've enjoyed using wxPython. Mature, active, native controls, lots o'
widgets, killer demo, great community, cross platform (with some
tweaking sometimes).

[David Cook]

On 2008-04-10, Chris Stewart <cs*********@gm ail.comwrote:

I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be?

With wxpython and pyqt, it can be relatively painless. You can often just
copy your code directly from one OS to the other and run it, and py2exe
makes it easy to distribute python apps to windows users. I haven't tried
packaging on OS X (with py2app?).

I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.

Yes, the broad principles (event driven, single-threaded event loop) are
pretty much the same.

Note, if you really like Swing, you can use it from Jython. Your app would
install and look like any other Java app to users (Jython is just another
jar in your distribution), for good or ill.

Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?
I'm curious to hear opinions on that.

We use wxPython at work because of the more liberal license. It's very
capable and works well for us.

However, for my own projects, I've switched to pyqt, which offers more
complete application help (e.g. things like Actions) and uses MVC from the
ground up rather than as an afterthought. I also find the pyqt API cleaner
and more consistent; some aspects of wxpython still seem clunky to me. And
the auto-completion solution offered on the wxPython wiki doesn't work on
Mac, which pretty much killed it for my project.

Dave Cook

[Michel Bouwmans]

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Paul Rubin wrote:

Chris Stewart <cs*********@gm ail.comwrites:

>I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.
...
Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?

If by "best" you mean "easiest", that is probably tkinter, which
comes with python. It is somewhat rudimentary and the widgets that
come with it don't look so great. But if you just want to put up
GUI's with basic functionality and not much glitz, it is ok for most
such purposes.
out how to use

I don't quite agree with you on this. Tkinter may be easy because it is
available by standard in Python, but that's about it in my opinion. The
API, look and performance hit is horrible. You're much better of with PyQt4
which makes the job really simple.

MFB
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[Mike Driscoll]

On Apr 10, 12:05 pm, Michel Bouwmans <mfb.chikaz...@ gmail.comwrote:

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Paul Rubin wrote:

Chris Stewart <cstewart...@gm ail.comwrites:

I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.
...
Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?

If by "best" you mean "easiest", that is probably tkinter, which
comes with python. It is somewhat rudimentary and the widgets that
come with it don't look so great. But if you just want to put up
GUI's with basic functionality and not much glitz, it is ok for most
such purposes.
out how to use

I don't quite agree with you on this. Tkinter may be easy because it is
available by standard in Python, but that's about it in my opinion. The
API, look and performance hit is horrible. You're much better of with PyQt4
which makes the job really simple.

MFB
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I see a lot of people recommend using pyQt, but they never mention the
controversy that surrounds its licensing. There have been many posts
on the subject already, but if the OP ever decides to sell anything
they create, I've heard that QT's licensing is kind of squirrelly.
Maybe this has been straightened out?

I looked at the website and found it fairly confusing. And don't you
need to download QT itself?

Mike

[Bjoern Schliessmann]

Chris Stewart wrote:

I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in
it further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs
but nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple
GUI app that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How
painful is that going to be?

I've built and am maintaining a not-so-simple-anymore cross platform
GUI application using wxPython (running in GNU/Linux (GTK+) and
Windows (XP/Vista)). It integrates well since wxPython uses native
widgets. The only problems I face are minor looks problems with
some widgets, e. g. tooltips with line breaks or list controls with
custom font. Custom widgets work very well.

Windows fonts BTW are a real pain since they have almost no unicode
characters, compared to today's GNU/Linux distributions.

Regards,
Björn

--
BOFH excuse #383:

Your processor has taken a ride to Heaven's Gate on the UFO behind
Hale-Bopp's comet.

[Michel Bouwmans]

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Mike Driscoll wrote:

On Apr 10, 12:05 pm, Michel Bouwmans <mfb.chikaz...@ gmail.comwrote:

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Paul Rubin wrote:

Chris Stewart <cstewart...@gm ail.comwrites:
I've always had an interest in Python and would like to dabble in it
further. I've worked on a few very small command line programs but
nothing of any complexity. I'd like to build a really simple GUI app
that will work across Mac, Windows, and Linux. How painful is that
going to be? I used to be really familiar with Java Swing a few years
ago. I imagine it will be similar.
...
Next, what would you say is the best framework I should look into?

If by "best" you mean "easiest", that is probably tkinter, which
comes with python. It is somewhat rudimentary and the widgets that
come with it don't look so great. But if you just want to put up
GUI's with basic functionality and not much glitz, it is ok for most
such purposes.
out how to use

I don't quite agree with you on this. Tkinter may be easy because it is
available by standard in Python, but that's about it in my opinion. The
API, look and performance hit is horrible. You're much better of with
PyQt4 which makes the job really simple.

MFB
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I see a lot of people recommend using pyQt, but they never mention the
controversy that surrounds its licensing. There have been many posts
on the subject already, but if the OP ever decides to sell anything
they create, I've heard that QT's licensing is kind of squirrelly.
Maybe this has been straightened out?

I looked at the website and found it fairly confusing. And don't you
need to download QT itself?

Mike

Yeah, the licensing of Qt is either be open-source (under one of the
Qt-exception licenses licenses so no exclusivity for the GPL anymore) or
pay for the commercial version. So yes, if you would like to sell it as
closed-source software you will need to buy the commercial version of Qt
and PyQt. In other words: you will have to pay twice. Don't forget that you
can also sell open-source software, so you don't have to pay. ;)

MFB
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