UI toolkits for Python

[Jason Stitt]

On Oct 17, 2005, at 12:19 PM, Kenneth McDonald wrote:

> Web interfaces are missing a lot more than this. Here are just a  
> few things that cannot be done with web-based interfaces (correct  
> me where I'm wrong):
>
> 1) A real word processor.
> 2) Keybindings in a web application
> 3) Drag and drop
> 4) Resizable windows (i.e. not the browser window) within the  
> application.
> 5) Anything other than absolutely trivial graphical programs.
>
> State is a very small part of the whole thing. Progress is being  
> made, but web interfaces are still basically forms that can contain  
> buttons, checkboxes, text fields, and a few other basic controls. I  
> wish it were otherwise.

Drag-and-drop within a page can be done. Drag-and-drop between pages  
is the only thing on that list I think is outright impossible.  
Everything else is a matter of overcoming difficulty (well, 5 might  
be close enough to qualify as impossible, if you're thinking Photoshop.)

Thing is, as Web applications continue to increase in complexity,  
they're going to resemble desktop apps more and more, not just on the  
front end but in back as well. So the "advantage" of Web apps being  
simpler to program will probably go away. Right now, they're only  
simpler because people are doing simpler things with them (and  
browsers only let you do so much.)

The extra complexity you get with desktop app toolkits is overkill  
for many purposes. HTML is often "good enough" in a lot less time.  
But if we get to the point where browsers are implementing inter-page  
drag-and-drop (probably differently!) and so forth, some of us might  
well decide it's simpler to go back to wxPython, etc.

Then again, maybe we'll live to see the W3C standardize the desktop  
environment... <g>

-Jason