ANNOUNCE: wxPython 2.1.4

[Robin Dunn]

Hi All,

At long last wxPython 2.1.4 is completed!  You can get your copy at
http://alldunn.com/wxPython/

Some CVS troubles and other issues have delayed its release for much longer
than I intended, but I put the time to good use adding more features to
wxPython.  There are more new features than you can shake a stick at!  So
hold on to your hats and be prepared to be blown away...  (Yes, I'm quite
proud of this work! ;-)

Here are the release notes for 2.1.4:

----------------------------------------------------------------------


What's new in 2.1.4
--------------------

This release is NOT syncronized with a snapshot release of wxGTK or
wxMSW.  For MSW this isn't much of a problem since you can get the
binaries from the web site.  I've made an unofficial interim snapshot
of wxGTK as well as RPMs for RedHat 6.0.  For other platforms you'll
have to build wxGTK from CVS.  (See
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/julian.smart/wxwin/cvs.htm) To get the same
set of sources from CVS that I used, checkout using the wxPy-2-1-4 tag.

Now back to what's new...

Much more support for event-less callbacks and add-on modules.

Created add-on module with wxOGL classes.

Added wxWindow.GetChildren().  Be careful of this.  It returns a *copy*
of the list of the window's children.  While you are using the list if
anything changes in the real list (a child is deleted, etc.) then the
list you are holding will suddenly have window references to garbage
memory and your app will likely crash.  But if you are careful it works
great!

Added a bunch of new and missing methods to wxTreeCrtl.  The
SortChildren method is now supported, but currently only for the
default sort order.

Added typemaps for wxSize, wxPoint, wxRealPoint, and wxRect that allow
either the actual objects or Python sequence values to be used.  For
example, the following are equivallent:

    win = wxWindow(parent, size = wxSize(100, 100))
    win = wxWindow(parent, size = (100, 100))

Super-charged the wxHtml module.  You can now create your own tag
handlers and also have access to the parser and cell classes.  There
is a tag handler in the library at wxPython.lib.wxpTag that
understands the WXP tag and is able to place wxPython windows on HTML
pages.  See the demo for an example.

A bunch of the methods of wxMenuBar were previously ifdef'd out for
wxGTK.  Added them back in since the methods exist now.

Wrapped the wxHtmlHelpController and related classes.

Wrapped the C++ versions of wxSizer and friends.  The Python-only
versions are still in the library, but depreciated.  (You will get a
warning message if you try to use them, but the warning can be
disabled.) The usage of the C++ versions is slightly different, and
the functionality of wxBorderSizer is now part of wxBoxSizer.  I have
added a few methods to wxSizer to try and make the transition as
smooth as possible, I combined all Add methods into a single method
that handles all cases, added an AddMany method, etc.  One step I did
not take was to make the default value of flag in the Add method be
wxGROW.  This would have made it more backward compatible, but less
portable to and from wxWin C++ code.  Please see the docs and demo for
further details.

Added wxPyEvent and wxPyCommandEvent classes, derived from wxEvent and
wxCommandEvent.  Each of them has SetPyData and GetPyData methods that
accept or return a single Python object.  You can use these classes
directly or derive from them to create your own types of event objects
that can pass through the wxWindows event system without loosing their
Python parts (as long as they are stored with SetPyData.)  Stay tuned
for more info and examples in future releases.

Added wxPython.lib.grids as an example of how to derive a new sizer
from the C++ sizers.  In this module you will find wxGridSizer and
wxFlexGridSizer.  wxGridSizer arrainges its items in a grid in which
all the widths and heights are the same.  wxFlexgridSizer allows
different widths and heights, and you can also specify rows and/or
columns that are growable.  See the demo for a couple examples for how
to use them.

Added the wxValidator class, and created a class named wxPyValidator
that should be used for the base class of any Python validators.  See
the demo for an example.  Please note that you MUST implement a Clone
method in your validator classes because of the way some things work
in the underlying C++ library.  I did not add wxTextValidator because
of some issues of how it transfers data to and from a wxString, which
in wxPython is automatically translated to and from Python strings, so
there would never be a concrete wxString that would hang around long
enough for the validator to do its job.  On the other hand, it should
be real easy to duplicate the functionality of wxTextValidator in a
pure Python class derived from wxPyValidator.

I've finally added a feature that has been on my list for close to two
years!  Ever wondered what that zero is for when you create your app
object?  Well now you can leave it out or explicitly set it to a true
value.  This value now controls what is to be done with sys.stdout and
sys.stderr.  A false value leaves them alone, and a true value sets
them to an instance of wxPyOnDemandOutputWindow.  (On windows the
default is true, on unix platforms the default is false.)  This class
creates a frame containing a wxTextCtrl as soon as anything is written
to sys.stdout or sys.stderr.  If you close the window it will come
back again the next time something is written.  (You can call
app.RestoreStdio to turn this off.)  If you would rather that the stdio be
redirected to a file, you can provide a second parameter to your app
object's constructor that is a filename.  If you want to use your own
class instead of wxPyOnDemandOutputWindow you can either implement
RedirectStdio() in you app class or change the value of
wxApp.outputWindowClass like this:

    class MyApp(wxApp):
        outputWindowClass = MyClass

        def OnInit(self):
            frame = MyFrame()
            self.SetTopWindow(frame)
            return true

Please see the implementation of wxPyOnDemandOutputWindow and wxApp in
wx.py for more details.  A few words of caution:  if you are running
your app in a debugger, changing sys.stdout and sys.stderr is likely
to really screw things up.

Added wxCaret.  Unfortunately it's author has still not documented it
in the wxWindows docs...

Some new 3rd party contributions in wxPython.lib.  PyShell, in
shell.py is an interesting implementaion of an interactive Python
shell in wxWindows.  floatbar.py has a class derived from wxTooBar
that can sense mouse drags and then reparent itself into another
frame. Moving the new frame close to where it came from puts the tool
bar back into the original parent.  (Unfortunately there is currently
a bug in wxGTK's wxFrame.SetToolBar so the FloatBar has some
problems...)



--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
robin at AllDunn.com
http://AllDunn.com/robin/
http://AllDunn.com/wxPython/  Check it out!