wxPython

[Mike Brenner]

Doug > I'd like to hear what people think of wyPython and any experience
they've
had with it, in particular as to how it compares to using other GUI
toolkits
like Tcl/Tk for instance.


The first problem to be solved with Python is how to get graphics
working the same on Linux and Windows. We tried several systems, and
wxPython got all functions except 2 up and running very quickly on both
systems. 

The first thing that we can't get any part to work is cutting and
pasting bit strings on the screen.

The second thing that can be gotten to work, but you must develop on
windows and port to Linux (not the other way around) is the sizing of
the intermediate levels of objects. Like most GUIs, wxPython requires
many levels of objects (windows, frames, etc., etc.). If you develop the
GUI on Linux, the sizing/resizing/automatic sizing always works on Linux
but fails when moved to Windows. Windows requires a lot more sizing
calls at a lot more intermediate levels to make it work correctly,
otherwise everything gets jumbled up on top of each other. When I have
all the details worked out, I will post exactly where to do the sizing
so we can do the GUI development on Linux and it will then still work
under Windows.

Outside of GUIs, all of our static and moving graphics were trivial to
write an awk scripts to convert it from BASIC, awk, C, C++, Pascal, Ada,
Ada-95, PL/SQL, Eyemusic, LaTeX, etc., into Python wxWindows calls
worked the first time on both Linux and Windows, using the HANGMAN
example in the wxWIndows EXAMPLES directory. Of course, now that we have
become Python experts, we would write any future conversion scripts in
Python instead of in awk, of course.

We were not able to get TK-inter or GTK to convert so it worked on both
Linux and WIndows with the same source code in the same amount of time,
so we stopped working on them.

If anyone knows how to cut and paste bits strong to/from the screen, I
am interested in finding out how.

Mike Brenner