How is GUI programming in Python?

[Michel Bouwmans]

Steve Holden wrote:

> Michel Bouwmans wrote:
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>> Mike Driscoll wrote:
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>>> On Apr 10, 12:05 pm, Michel Bouwmans <mfb.chikaz... at gmail.com> wrote:
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>>>> Paul Rubin wrote:
>>>>> Chris Stewart <cstewart... at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>> 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. ;)
>> 
> I don't think PyQt has any licensing restrictions to speak of, only the
> underlying Qt platform (though it's a while since I looked).
> 
> regards
>   Steve

Unfortunately, from the PyQt website's FAQ:

Do I need the commercial version of PyQt?
 The easiest way to answer this is to ask "Am I using the commercial edition
of Qt?". If so then you also need the commercial version of PyQt. If you
are using the GPL version of Qt, then you only need the GPL version of
PyQt.

MFB