VB-like GUI designer?

[Fred]

On 9 Aug 2004 10:35:45 -0700, luismg at gmx.net (Neuruss) wrote:
(snip)

	Thx everyone for the feedback. I just took a look at Boa,
BlackAdder, and PythonCard.

For those VB developers out there, here's some notes:

- Like wxGlade, Boa is based on wxWidgets, but doesn't seem to have a
GUI builder. You just add widgets to a list, and I assume you have to
set the coordinates and properties through code only. Also, Boa hasn't
been updated since April 2003

- PythonCard is apparently since a prototype, so very risky to start
using this to write professionnal apps. Besides, it doesn't seem to
offer a grid object, which is a must for a lot of business apps

- BlackAdder is an IDE from the Kompany (KDE), uses the QT widgets and
the PyQT wrapper, and comes with the QT Designer GUI tool. So far,
it's the only VB-like IDE I found, but I don't know how good it is
(didn't check during install whether Python and PyQT were installed;
The IDE started with a non-standard, 14-point font, etc.)

Now, for some more questions:

- Since the goal is to avoid getting trapped again, I'm concerned
about using non-native Windows widgets, and rely on either wxWidgets
or the commercial QT widgets set.
Is there a GUI designer that just uses the native widgets and possibly
COM controls like VB instead? Our customers are very unlikely to ever
leave Windows for Linux, so I don't need cross-platform widgets

- Is there a good grid object in wxWidgets or QT similar to eg.
ComponentOne's VSFlexGrid?
I'm especially concerned about ease of use (FlexGrid can be linked to
an array, which makes it a snap to read/write data from/to an SQL
server like SQLite), performance, and features (eg. can I print the
grind and have a nice layout, or must I handle the printing part
myself?) 

- Is there a GUI designer for wxWidgets that is on par with QT
Designer? If not, does wxWidgets have more to offer than the QT
widgets set, which would make it a better choice even if no good GUI
designer is yet available for wxW? 

- And last, since we're on the subject of tools available to switch
from VB... is there a good compiler so as to distribute a GUI Python
built on either wxW or QT?
I've seen a bunch of tools like py2exe, freeze, pyPack, Psyco,
McMillan (RIP?), and distutils, so am a bit lost. Which would you
recommend?

Thank you very much for your help
Fred.